CAP 18 CAP 18 - Part 9 - Attacking Moves Discussion

[FMD]

Fighting coverage wouldn't be entirely bad in my opinion.

252+ SpA Life Orb CAP Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 247-291 (35 - 41.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Chansey could easily heal off this damage and would avoid any further Analytic boosts due to its lower speed. We could alternatively give it Aura Sphere for a weaker, but more reliable, move. Even on a crit, it only deals a VERY marginal amount more damage than Focus Blast. Furthermore, Fighting coverage doesn't really threaten much of our counters list at all.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Abomasnow Aura Sphere vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey on a critical hit: 284-336 (40.3 - 47.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

 

[Torty73]

Ok, I going to give a few moves which should be on the set
- Surf, Scald, flamethrower, fire blast are stab moves which I can't see you could have a problem with as they are standard for this types of pokemon and aren't over powered

Sludge bomb and sludge wave sound like great coverage and are balanced to deal with fairys and not much else

Ice type attack is out of flavour and could threaten some of the counters like bulky dragons.

Shadow ball is a good move and with help it deal with ghosts, while only threating Latios and Latias slightly
This already has a strong offensive stats and requires little coverage due to its excellent typing.

 

[Kavatika]

I don't see a reason to include fighting coverage in the first place. It doesn't help threaten anything on our threat list that isn't already beaten by stabs or poison/steel coverage alone. In fact, most of our threat list resists Fighting-coverage, so however unlikely, it could give something we're supposed to threaten a switch-in (most likely example would be scarf Landorus-t switching in on fighting-coverage).

I might edit this a little later with arguments on some other stuff

 

[Salt]

Dragon / Fighting / Ice / Bug / Normal / Ground / Fairy Special Attacking coverage
Dark / Ghost Special Attacking Coverage

Disallow all of these. These particular move types are either redundant with our STABs and do nothing for us coveragewise, or they hit things on our threatlist for supereffective damage. Dragon, Ice, Fairy, Dark, and Ghost are particularly ones that should not be available to the CAP under any circumstances. I don't really have much to say here since hitting things that are supposed to threaten us supereffectively is obviously a bad thing. There isn't really a reason to add Normal, Ground, or Bug coverage since it makes no sense both competitively and flavorfully. The only thing part of this list that could see some leeway is Fighting, but the more we don't threaten Chansey, the better.

I don't think Knock Off has been mentioned yet. Because of CAP 18'S low attack, it might be considered a non-attacking move, but we need to disallow it here and now. The mere possibility of Knock Off completely kills any chance of Chansey being able to switch into us. With Anaylitic, I would imagine it does solid damage to Lati@s too. Being able to make Chansey almost useless should be argument enough to disallow it.

 

[Mozilla Fennekin]

/lurk

4 Atk Analytic CAP Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latias: 108-128 (35.7 - 42.3%) -- 92.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 Atk Analytic CAP Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latios: 120-142 (39.7 - 47%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Yeah, doesn't really decimate the Lati's, but Knock Off would still be a great utility move for him.

 

[jas61292]

Starting off looking at the STABs, I have to say that I think Water Spout and Eruption are just far too powerful, and not fitting for our core. At full strength, we would be able to 2HKO Latias, even without a boosting item. With Specs, they would let us even potentially 2HKO the pink blobs, assuming we have a couple hazards up or the weather on our side. Whats more though is that, should we switch into something like Aegislash, these moves instantly become inferior options, meaning it would be best off in a completely different scenario.

Fire Blast and Hydro Pump on the other hand I believe to be absolutely necessary. Fire Blast specifically is needed to net the KOs we want on Aegislash and the like. I'm not going to get into the calculations here myself, but I will just point back to the stat spread selection, where the majority of offensive calcs done (and thus the majority of the reason our spread was chosen) were dependent on having Fire Blast. We could work without it, but it would set us back considerably from what we were expecting out of stats. This is mostly applicable to Fire Blast, but I am throwing Hydro Pump in there too, as it is similar. Though, with that said, Hydro Pump is a lot more expendable, and not nearly as much of the reasoning for our chosen spread depended on it.

As for other STAB moves, Flamethrower, Surf, Scald, Lava Plume and just about anything else with less than 110 power is fine by me. I don't think there is any reason not to give any of these moves, as spreading burns is very helpful and another way to punish switchins, and otherwise, all these moves can be seen a equal to or inferior to other STAB options. Overheat is also fine, as while it does have incredible power to break some counters, most things we don't want to break are worried more about 2HKOs than OHKOs, and when it comes to those, Overheat is actually a weaker option than Fire Blast.

Finally, for the last couple things in the Needs Discussion section, I think Volt Switch and Grass Knot should definitely be disallowed. Grass Knot doesn't do shit to Rotom-W, but it doesn't really help much with anything we care about either. Of what we want to threaten, it only really hits Ground types, which are already covered better with STAB Water moves. At the same time it hits Water types, which we don't want to beat so easily. While it might not be that helpful, it also doens't really do anything at all that we want, and so I see no reason to include it. Volt Switch on the other hand is super harmful and we should stay far away from. Again, it hits Waters that we don't like, but it also takes switch punishing so far to the next level that it transcends usefulness in the core and would become just a generically amazing pivot. It may only be 70 power and lack STAB, but with huge SpA, and Analytic, it hurts to switch into, and that is on top of giving easy switch advantage. The fact that it is super effective only on things we don't want to beat or don't care about only makes it more ridiculous. With that said, U-Turn is not nearly as bad of an option, coming off of our pathetic Atk. Even so, I'm on the fence about this one as I don't think pivoting moves like this are really necessary, and even with 0- Atk, it could still chip off as much as 27% from Latias on the switch in, in addition to giving us a huge switch advantage. I wouldn't say it would be terrible to allow, but I would say that it is unnecessary, and not incredibly helpful, so disallowing might be for the best.

 

[Jho]

Dark Pulse is something to consider, as it offers the coverage vs the things meant to be threatend by 18 (aegislash, gengar, latias) etc.

 

[alexwolf]

Why are people arguing for Flash Cannon to hit Fairies, when neutral Fire Blast or Hydro Pump are stronger then super effective Flash Cannon? Sludge Bomb / Wave i can get a little, as they are a bit more powerful on super effective hits than our STABs when hitting neutral, and they can also hit super effectively Azumarill, but Flash Cannon?

Fire Blast and Hydro Pump are obvious musts, as the stat spread selection has been based on them. Anything weaker such as Flamethrower, Surf, Lava Plume, and Scald is perfectly fine as well, so i don't think we need any discusion on those. Allow Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Surf, Flamethrower, Scald, and Lava Plume.

Disallow Water Spout and Eruption, they have the potential to screw some of our checks and counters, and those moves also encourage the use of Choice Scarf, which has nothing to do with the role we want the CAP to take, this of a hard hitter and bulky pivot against certain Pokemon.

ginganinja mentioned that the core is weak to certain set up sweepers that the CAP should be able to somehow prevent from setting up if the need arises, but i don't think we should adress this with attacking moves other than our STABs and Hidden Power. Those sweepers are Dragon Dance Dragonite, Dragon Dance Mega Gyarados, Dragon Dance Mega Charizard X. Out of those, and Mega Gyarados can be burned with WoW, a move that all Fire-types have and thus the CAP will have too, Dragonite can be crippled with WoW or Hidden Power Ice, and Mega Charizard X takes a ton of damage from Hydro Pump. We don't need coverage for the sweepers that threaten our core, we have all we need between our STABs, WoW, and Hidden Power.

Disallow Volt Switch. Too powerful against Pokemon that are supposed to check us, such as Keldeo, Rotom-W, Suicune, Politoed, Kingdra, and Manaphy, and also gives switch-in advantage, which means that Water-types can't even checks us once anymore.

Disallow any kind of Grass, Ice, and Electric moves. The CAP already has the option of Hidden Power Grass or Electric to cover threatening Water-types, which is more than enough to get the job done. The CAP shouldn't be able to cover Dragon-types and Water-types on the same moveset as then only the blobs would be safe switch-ins, it should have to choose between Dragon and Water-types, so leaving Hidden Power as the only option to hurt them is the way to go.

About Sludge Bomb and Slude Wave. People have been saying we need them for Clefable, Sylveon, and Togekiss, as well as for Azumarull, but i don't get why. Azumarill is dealt with by WoW, a move that will be great for the CAP to cripple Pokemon such as Mega Gyarados and +2 Mega Mawile (which would otherwise OHKO with Sucker Punch). Sylveon and Togekiss are 2HKOed on the switch with Specs, no matter what spread they use (although Sylveon only runs max HP / max SpD+):

• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 237-280 (60.1 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 183-216 (46.4 - 54.8%) -- 9.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Sure 2HKO with SR up even after Protect (two turns of Leftovers recovery)

• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Togekiss: 258-304 (68.9 - 81.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Togekiss: 199-235 (53.2 - 62.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Sure 2HKO.

• 252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Togekiss: 172-204 (45.9 - 54.5%) -- 6.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Togekiss: 133-157 (35.5 - 41.9%) -- 86.8% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Sure 2HKO after SR, even without Specs against SpD Togekiss.

• 252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Sylveon: 211-249 (53.5 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Heatran Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Sylveon: 162-192 (41.1 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Sure 2HKO after SR against the only relevant Sylveon set, physically defensive, even without Choice Specs.

Sludge Wave and Sludge Bomb are really only helpful to 2HKO Calm Mind Clefable assuming we are switching into it and it has already grabbed a CM boost, and this can only be done with a Specs set.

In the meanwhile, here is how much damage Sludge Wave can do to some of our supposed checks:

• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Sludge Wave vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Gyarados: 228-269 (68.6 - 81%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Rotom-W: 157-185 (51.6 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune: 203-239 (50.2 - 59.1%) -- big chance to 2HKO after SR and Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 249-293 (77 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Analytic Heatran Sludge Wave vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 114-134 (35.1 - 41.3%)
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Heatran Sludge Wave vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Dragonite: 175-207 (54 - 63.8%)

The last two calcs are against Dragonite switching in without SR up, where the first hit is Analytic boosted and halved from Multiscale, and the second hit is a regular one. As you can see, the CAP has a small chance to 2HKO Dragonite through Multiscale. For me, those calcs seem to much for our supposed checks. And Sludge Bomb could be even worse, because of the big Poison chance which ends up making it more powerful than Sludge Wave sometimes.

So for now, i think we should Disallow Sludge Bomb and Sludge Wave. Unaware Clefable can be dealt with by Iron Tail Lucario or teammates, and it can't switch into the CAP anyway.

Finally, i think we should allow U-turn, as it would be very helpfull to bring Lucario or Latias in safely against Pokemon such as Chansey, Blissey, Keldeo, etc while also making the CAP a better pivot, a role we decided we wanted the CAP to take. Also there is the opportunity cost of not nuking something with Analytic STABs, which is the whole point of using the CAP, so it's not like U-turn is a move that the CAP will want to spam. Oh and let's not forget that SR weak mon + U-turn is not exactly the best combo ever, which ensures that the CAP will use U-turn sparsely and strategically, not mindlessly like other Pokemon with momentum moves do, such as Rotom-W, Scizor, and Landorus-T.

 

[canno]

I want to talk more about Grass Knot and why it should be allowed

Grass Knot helps us vs Water / Ground mons and, more importanty, Jellicent and Keldeo. Now I know we said we would make bulky water-types counter, but I feel that Jellicent can be an exception, as Jellicent counters any variant of Lucario that doesn't have Crunch. Not only that, but it also doesn't really mind Latias that much. Having a way to significantly damage it on this cap is important imo. Meanwhile, we don't want Keldeo as a counter, as Keldeo is paired with Pursuit Aegislash. Giving it a free switch to CAP seems bad to me. Not only that, but Grass Knot hits as hard as Hidden Power Grass on Keldeo (both have 60 BP). It's a really niche move that doesn't do much for our CAP, so I see no reason not to include it.

Volt Switch I feel would make our CAP way too good, so I also agree with disallowing it. The only reason I can think of allowing it is because it baits in Ground-types to block it, and even then that reasoning is flawed.

 

[Yoshuriken]

Why are people arguing for Flash Cannon to hit Fairies, when neutral Fire Blast or Hydro Pump are stronger then super effective Flash Cannon? Sludge Bomb / Wave i can get a little, as they are a bit more powerful on super effective hits than our STABs when hitting neutral, and they can also hit super effectively Azumarill, but Flash Cannon?

The reason Flash Cannon is good for our CAP is its accuracy. Flash Cannon is only marginally weaker than Fire Blast against pure fairies. FC is still a 2HKO when Fire Blast is, but a Fire Blast hitting twice only happens 72.25% of the time. That's not bad, mind you, but Flash Cannon getting the kill 100% of the time is pretty nice. The accuracy is especially important if the fairy tries to heal stall us until we miss or run out of PP, which is not that hard when Fire Blast only has 8.

Honestly, the way I see it Flash Cannon is a safer version of Sludge Wave. Sludge Wave has potential to mess with our supposed counters, while FC does not. Sludge Wave however hits harder on Spdef Sylveon and Azumarill. While we don't need both, we do need one. If it is decided that Sludge Wave is too hurtful to our supposed counters, then FC it is. Personally I think Sludge Wave would be fine. Keldeo won't want to switch in on us, but we don't want him to counter us, and that's exactly what he couldn't do.

 

[Elite Lord Sigma]

First off, I concur that Water Spout and Eruption are both far too powerful to be allowed for our mollusc friend. Being able to 2HKO Latias, one of the best special sponges in the game, with a sub-optimal item and a resisted attack is obscene.

I also believe that Dragon, Ice, Ground, Bug, and Fairy special attacks are anti-concept, as they would heavily damage many of our proposed checks. Hell, even something as weak as Draining Kiss would deal too much damage with Analytic and Life Orb taken into account:


252 SpA Life Orb Analytic CAP 18 Draining Kiss vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 177-208 (58.6 - 68.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Analytic CAP 18 Draining Kiss vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 205-244 (63.4 - 75.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Analytic CAP 18 Draining Kiss vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 153-182 (50.6 - 60.2%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery


Considering CAP 18's nature as a pivot, I believe U-Turn should certainly be an available move. It's not going to do much damage coming off of base 45 Attack without STAB, and it allows CAP 18 to safely bring in Lucario or Latias on an appropriate would-be check or counter. Furthermore, neither Lucario nor Latias can learn U-Turn themselves, preventing the core from turning into VoltTurn spam.

 

[Scoopapa]

I don't think that Sludge Bomb and Sludge Wave would be so bad. The scenarios where they break the wrong threats are when we are using Choice Specs and making a good prediction. It has to be a really good prediction too, because being choice-locked into a non-STAB Poison attack is just so easy for the opponent to punish; it's a huge risk. Even if you do score a KO, you are almost guaranteed to lose momentum the next turn. I don't see the point in neutering all of our sets that use other items just to weaken ballsy plays that are likely to backfire anyway. Sludge Bomb is easily the most efficient way to kill Sylveon without Specs (without recovery moves or Specs, you are going to have to status it repeatedly, or it can just stall you and deal repeated chip damage). It's also the only way to hit Azumarill super-effectively, aside from Grass and Electric moves that do far worse to our threats list. Flash Cannon seems insufficient on its own, too, because it doesn't deal with Azumarill, and because we have the option of Steel STAB anyway with Lucario.

Allow Poison-type coverage

 

[Tadasuke]

Scald is definitely a must have, judging by the whole Fire Water thing. Water Spout and Eruption both seem somewhat counter-intuitive judging that you need to go second for the boost to apply, giving your opponent ample time to lower your HP, inherently weakening both of those attacks.

 

[alexwolf]

I don't think that Sludge Bomb and Sludge Wave would be so bad. The scenarios where they break the wrong threats are when we are using Choice Specs and making a good prediction. It has to be a really good prediction too, because being choice-locked into a non-STAB Poison attack is just so easy for the opponent to punish; it's a huge risk. Even if you do score a KO, you are almost guaranteed to lose momentum the next turn. I don't see the point in neutering all of our sets that use other items just to weaken ballsy plays that are likely to backfire anyway. Sludge Bomb is easily the most efficient way to kill Sylveon without Specs (without recovery moves or Specs, you are going to have to status it repeatedly, or it can just stall you and deal repeated chip damage). It's also the only way to hit Azumarill super-effectively, aside from Grass and Electric moves that do far worse to our threats list. Flash Cannon seems insufficient on its own, too, because it doesn't deal with Azumarill, and because we have the option of Steel STAB anyway with Lucario.

Allow Poison-type coverage

You don't need Sludge Bomb for Sylveon, item-less Fire Blast / Hydro Pump 2HKOes it with SR up and no prediction at all needed. Talking about physically defensive Sylveon of course, specially defensive Sylveon is kinda bad.

 

[jynx KB]

Considering the pivoting nature of this pokemon, we might be relying a bit much on Fire Blast and Hydro Pump, namely that they are both moves with few PP. Personally I'm all for poison moves, U-turn, and Grass Knot for that reason alone, even though Fairy is dealt with by Fire, and Ground by Water respectively. The Latis can also Wish Pass, possibly keeping the core in the fight even longer.

 

[Qwilphish]

Okay, after the obvious disallows and allows are over, its time to get into the more controversial moves.

Grass Knot

Grass Knot allows for CAP to hit certain Water-types on the switch hard (see: Keldeo, Azumarill, Jellicent) without completely screwing over Rotom-W. Despite Grass Knot's prediction-based usefulness (as without Analytic Grass Knot can't hit nearly as noticeably as with it), it gives the potential to screw over the Water-types that Latias loves to Defog on. There is some usefulness on Grass Knot because Jellicent is a big threat to this core as at the moment nothing can really take it on efficiently unless Lucario runs Crunch, which limits its coverage that can be spent elsewhere. However, this generation in general has been unkind to Jellicent (Thundurus unban, Dark and Ghost-type's prevalence) and it is too uncommon to be taken in consideration when dealing with a move that can hurt our checks decently well.

Grass Knot Calcs

Keldeo
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 210-248 (65 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 162-192 (50.1 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Guaranteed 2HKO
Jellicent
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jellicent: 224-264 (55.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jellicent: 172-204 (42.5 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Possible 2HKO
Azumarill
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 230-272 (56.9 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 178-210 (44 - 51.9%) -- 11.7% chance to 2HKO
Guaranteed 2HKO, Possible 2HKO with Lefties, No Chance to 2HKO w/ Assault Vest
Rotom-W
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (20 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Rotom-W: 44-54 (14.4 - 17.7%) -- possible 9HKO after Leftovers recovery
lol

Disallow Grass Knot

U-Turn
U-Turn allows for CAP to ease prediction and get a switch advantage on a possible switching Aegislash or some other Pokemon without the power that made Volt Switch broken and disallowed. U-Turn is a great move, and it is an especially good move on a Pokemon that is supposed to take advantage of switches (which in turn supports the core as it makes it easier to work). Due to our abysmal Attack stat, U-Turn cannot be taken advantage of as a powerful attack like how Genesect and Scizor use it. U-Turn on a switch to one of our counters can either lead to Latias getting off a crucial Healing Wish or Defog easily or can even allow for Lucario to set up like against Chansey. The most anti-concept application of U-Turn is to hit Latias on the switch somewhat hard which I believe is not enough to outweigh the benefits of having this ability.

Allow U-Turn

Overheat
Overheat allows for CAP to hit even harder on the switch than Fire Blast can, at the expense of a -2 drop in SpA afterwards. I do not see any issue with allowing this move as the -2 drop afterwards drops all viability that it could have. No checks, bar frailer ones such as Keldeo, are hit so hard by Overheat that they cannot simply shrug off the next hit. Two hits from Fire Blast on the switch hits about the same as 2 hits from Overheat so I don't feel the need to go any further. If people want to use a bad move when there is a better alternative, be my guest.

Allow Overheat

Knock Off
Knock Off gives CAP more utility by removing items from troublesome Pokemon. Knock Off completely destroys many of the Pokemon on our threatlist such as Rotom-W (No Leftovers recovery or no ChestoRest), Chansey, and Latias. None of these Pokemon are obviously hit too hard that it renders them impractical to switch in again, but the universal utility that it brings is nearly unmatched besides by moves such as Volt Switch. Knock Off also has no real correlation to the rest of the core. Lucario can deal with all of the Pokemon which Knock Off neuters with or without this move. There is no doubt that this move is good, however it allows for universal utility that is unnecessary for this specific core that we are working on.

Disallow Knock Off

 

[EternalSnowman]

First about STABs. I think Eruption and Water Spout should be disallowed. They just are really OP and wreck through Pokemon too easily. Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Surf, Flamethower, Scald and Lava Plume should be allowed. These moves arent OP and are standard on many water types, plus we need Fire Blast to beat Aegislash effectively.

Disallow Grass Knot and Volt Switch.

Overall Grass and Electric coverage arent in our interest flavorwise. Also while Grass Knot does no damage to Rotom-W, other moves will so Grass Coverage is a dangerous line to be on. Volt Switch is just really strong as a move in general and weakens counters/checks as we can Volt Switch out when the counter/check is being switched in.

Disallow other Coverage like Dragon/Fairy etc.

Besides being not really in our interest flavorwise, it also really doesnt help us beat who we are supposed to beat. However I think we should let Poison Coverage, because A. It makes sense flavorwise B. It allows CAP18 to beat fairy types much easier.

Allow Poison Coverage and U-Turn

Considering CAP18's abysmal attack, U-Turn would be kinda useless on it in terms of damage. The utility for prediction would be really nice and there is almost no reason NOT to give it to CAP18.

Disallow Knock Off

Beats Chansey... Enough said.

 

[Scoopapa]

You don't need Sludge Bomb for Sylveon, item-less Fire Blast / Hydro Pump 2HKOes it with SR up and no prediction at all needed. Talking about physically defensive Sylveon of course, specially defensive Sylveon is kinda bad.

Well, my point about prediction was not about Sylveon. Sylveon is not a "wrong threat" to be killing. I was talking about Water-types that don't want to switch into Specs Analytic Sludge Bomb with SR up.

STAB moves without boosting items still only guarantee a 2HKO on 0 SpD Sylveon if it is switching into CAP18 with SR up. They don't even let you beat it 1v1. Sludge Bomb is still your best bet for beating it 1v1, checking, or countering it. It can stall out your unboosted Fire Blast/Hydro Pump without too much difficulty.

And Azumarill is the most relevant reason we would want Poison coverage, anyway.

Assuming the presence of Stealth Rock is not as safe here as it usually is, as we are designing a pivot out of Defog Latias. This doesn't mean we will never have Stealth Rock but it does make the Stealth Rock-less calculations at least as relevant as the ones with Stealth Rock.

 

[Albacore]

I personally believe that we should disallow all non-STAB coverage that isn't Poison-type. Our dual STAB pretty much threatens everything we need to threaten besides Fairies, which Sludge Bomb/Wave covers very well. Anything that would enable our CAP to hit Water or Dragon types too is a no-no in my opinion. The only other move I might consider acceptable coverage is Power Gem, mainly for Dragonite and Mega-Charizard-Y, both of which can threaten our core.

The main reason I don't think coverage is a good idea is because our CAP was pretty much designed to punish switches with its powerful STAB moves. Even a resisted switch-in will take a lot of damage, so prediction isn't really necessary when facing Aegislash or Excadrill, for instance. I honestly don't see non-STAB moves being useful for the purpose of this CAP, besides Poison which isn't even that useful since Azumarill hates getting burnt and other fairies are hit just as hard, if not harder, by Fire Blast.

So basically, give it all the STABs and nothing else.

 

[Ranger Mike]

I personally believe that we should disallow all non-STAB coverage that isn't Poison-type. Our dual STAB pretty much threatens everything we need to threaten besides Fairies, which Sludge Bomb/Wave covers very well. Anything that would enable our CAP to hit Water or Dragon types too is a no-no in my opinion. The only other move I might consider acceptable coverage is Power Gem, mainly for Dragonite and Mega-Charizard-Y, both of which can threaten out team.

The main reason I don't think coverage is a good idea is because our CAP was pretty much designed to punish switches with its powerful STAB moves. Even a resisted switch-in will take a lot of damage, so prediction isn't really necessary when facing Aegislash or Excadrill, for instance. I honestly don't see non-STAB moves being useful for the purpose of this CAP, besides Poison which isn't even that useful since Azumarill hates getting burnt and other fairies are hit just as hard, if not harder, by Fire Blast.

So basically, give it all the STABs and nothing else.

I agree with this to an extent, as we should have some coverage with moves such as u-turn because our cap is made to be a pivot and u-turn gains momentum but that and sludge bomb are the only things we really need besides stab moves to be quite frank

 

[canno]

Okay, after the obvious disallows and allows are over, its time to get into the more controversial moves.

Grass Knot

Grass Knot allows for CAP to hit certain Water-types on the switch hard (see: Keldeo, Azumarill, Jellicent) without completely screwing over Rotom-W. Despite Grass Knot's prediction-based usefulness (as without Analytic Grass Knot can't hit nearly as noticeably as with it), it gives the potential to screw over the Water-types that Latias loves to Defog on. There is some usefulness on Grass Knot because Jellicent is a big threat to this core as at the moment nothing can really take it on efficiently unless Lucario runs Crunch, which limits its coverage that can be spent elsewhere. However, this generation in general has been unkind to Jellicent (Thundurus unban, Dark and Ghost-type's prevalence) and it is too uncommon to be taken in consideration when dealing with a move that can hurt our checks decently well.

Grass Knot Calcs

Keldeo
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 210-248 (65 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 162-192 (50.1 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Guaranteed 2HKO
Jellicent
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jellicent: 224-264 (55.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jellicent: 172-204 (42.5 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Possible 2HKO
Azumarill
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 230-272 (56.9 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Heatran Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 178-210 (44 - 51.9%) -- 11.7% chance to 2HKO
Guaranteed 2HKO, Possible 2HKO with Lefties, No Chance to 2HKO w/ Assault Vest
Rotom-W
252+ SpA Analytic Heatran Grass Knot (20 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Rotom-W: 44-54 (14.4 - 17.7%) -- possible 9HKO after Leftovers recovery
lol

Disallow Grass Knot

The problem I have with this is that HP Grass hits Keldeo and Azumarril just as hard, and hits Rotom-W harder. Meanwhile, it doesn't do enough to Jellicent. While I can see the fear of Grass Knot killing our checks, HP Grass already does that. The only notable targets Grass Knot hits harder than HP Grass is Jellicent (Who can dismantle our core. I know it's uncommon, but it still fares well vs our core), Mega Gyarados (Whom we do not want to give a free set-up, as +1 Mega Gyara is a huge threat to the core), and some Water / Ground mons like Quagsire (This one might be an issue, but not a major one, as HP Grass also destroys these). I don't feel like it is a CAP breaking move, as HP Grass is just as powerful most of the time (and even stronger vs Rotom-W).

 

[alexwolf]

The problem I have with this is that HP Grass hits Keldeo and Azumarril just as hard, and hits Rotom-W harder. Meanwhile, it doesn't do enough to Jellicent. While I can see the fear of Grass Knot killing our checks, HP Grass already does that. The only notable targets Grass Knot hits harder than HP Grass is Jellicent (Who can dismantle our core. I know it's uncommon, but it still fares well vs our core), Mega Gyarados (Whom we do not want to give a free set-up, as +1 Mega Gyara is a huge threat to the core), and some Water / Ground mons like Quagsire (This one might be an issue, but not a major one, as HP Grass also destroys these). I don't feel like it is a CAP breaking move, as HP Grass is just as powerful most of the time (and even stronger vs Rotom-W).

The thing is, if we give to the CAP Grass Knot, it can free up its Hidden Power slot and use Hidden Power Ice to cover Dragon-types, leaving only Chansey and Blissey as good checks, and Rotom-W as a shaky one (Rotom-W can't do any significant damage back and takes a ton from our STABs), which is not a good thing. If the CAP wants to cover Water-types, it should rely on Hidden Power Grass, so that Dragon-types remain as checks.

Well, my point about prediction was not about Sylveon. Sylveon is not a "wrong threat" to be killing. I was talking about Water-types that don't want to switch into Specs Analytic Sludge Bomb with SR up.

STAB moves without boosting items still only guarantee a 2HKO on 0 SpD Sylveon if it is switching into CAP18 with SR up. They don't even let you beat it 1v1. Sludge Bomb is still your best bet for beating it 1v1, checking, or countering it. It can stall out your unboosted Fire Blast/Hydro Pump without too much difficulty.

And Azumarill is the most relevant reason we would want Poison coverage, anyway.

Assuming the presence of Stealth Rock is not as safe here as it usually is, as we are designing a pivot out of Defog Latias. This doesn't mean we will never have Stealth Rock but it does make the Stealth Rock-less calculations at least as relevant as the ones with Stealth Rock.

You have a point that Sludge Bomb / Wave is our best bet at checking / countering Sylveon and Clefable. However, the extra 15% damage that Sludge Wave gives over our STABs against Pokemon such as Rotom-W, Suicune, and Keldeo is very troubling, as it means that some of them can't even check the CAP once. And imo, WoW is more than enough to deal with Azumarill.

 

[canno]

The thing is, if we give to the CAP Grass Knot, it can free up its Hidden Power slot and use Hidden Power Ice to cover Dragon-types, leaving only Chansey and Blissey as good checks, and Rotom-W as a shaky one (Rotom-W can't do any significant damage back and taakes a ton from our STABs), which is not a good thing. If the CAP wants to cover Water-types, it should rely on Hidden Power Grass, so that Dragon-types remain as checks.

Hm, that is a pretty good point about HP Grass vs HP Ice and Grass Knot. Dunno, still feel that Jellicent is to much of a threat, but you might be right that GK / HP Ice / STABS might be too much.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I personally believe that we should disallow all non-STAB coverage that isn't Poison-type. Our dual STAB pretty much threatens everything we need to threaten besides Fairies, which Sludge Bomb/Wave covers very well. Anything that would enable our CAP to hit Water or Dragon types too is a no-no in my opinion. The only other move I might consider acceptable coverage is Power Gem, mainly for Dragonite and Mega-Charizard-Y, both of which can threaten out team.

The main reason I don't think coverage is a good idea is because our CAP was pretty much designed to punish switches with its powerful STAB moves. Even a resisted switch-in will take a lot of damage, so prediction isn't really necessary when facing Aegislash or Excadrill, for instance. I honestly don't see non-STAB moves being useful for the purpose of this CAP, besides Poison which isn't even that useful since Azumarill hates getting burnt and other fairies are hit just as hard, if not harder, by Fire Blast.

So basically, give it all the STABs and nothing else.

We need to threaten pokemon like Gengar and Keldeo though, they dont give a crap about either of our stabs or sludge bomb

This one may sound a bit odd, but I think we should allow Psychic Type Coverage. It helps aganist Gengar who really can destroy our core right now and also remove Keldeo as a counter, which would probably be a good idea because like the TL already said, Keldeo is commonly paired with Aegislash

 

[Yayz]

We need to threaten pokemon like Gengar and Keldeo though, they dont give a crap about either of our stabs or sludge bomb

252+ SpA CAP Fire Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Gengar: 258-304 (98.4 - 116%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
...yeah.

Keldeo, though, is a good point, and Psychic does 74.9%-88.5%, and I don't know of anything else that's hit hard by it.