CAP 19 CAP 19 - Part 1 - Closed Concept Assessment

[Solitaire]

I honestly do not think that stat debuffs would be the way to go for this concept. The fainted Pokemon has to make a lasting impression, and what is to stop the opposing Pokemon from immediately switching out after? Yeah, their other Pokemon would take damage, but if I were in their position, I would switch out into a lesser needed Pokemon. Unless your other team members have Shadow Tag or something of the sorts, then you would just be wasting your time by continuously trying to lower your opponents stats with little to no end result.

As for statusing, there are moves that can heal these statuses. Aromatherapy and Heal Bell are a thing, though I shouldn't base all of my theories on this alone since not all Pokemon run these moves. In fact, I think very few do teams run these moves as far as I know. Correct me if I am wrong. Let's say that a team doesn't run these moves, and you are free to status something, but what exactly are you going to status? If you are Toxic a Pokemon. your opponent will most likely switch into something doesn't really need to beat your team, or something that wants to be statused like something with Guts or Quick Feet. But you may also end up statusing a Pokemon that your opponent does end up needing, but if they need this Pokemon desperately to win, they would not send it out against something they knew would end up statusing them unless they absolutely had to. And yeah, you could argue that you could status everything, which would definitely leave a lasting impression on the battle field, but statusing the opponents team is not really what we are going for. We want something that our opponent is terrified of fainting because of what effects it could have on the outcome of the game.

Well what about loss of PP? Most people do not really account for this option, even so, I have seen it discussed here. Grudge and Spite are an option, but your opponent can choose which moves will lose PP. If you are about to faint, your opponent could use a move that they will most likely not need to faint you so that when you use Grudge, they won't lose the PP of the move they need the most. Same with Spite, they will attack you with something they probably won't need if they know you are going to use it.

But what if your opponent couldn't pick what move to lose PP?

Say for instance you have to switch our because your opponent is about to use a super-effective attack that your team has no direct type counter to (you might want to build a better team if this is the case), so you go into CAP 19. You are able to get an Encore off, "Okay," your opponent says, they can just continue to do direct damage to you. Then you use Spite, with cuts down that Pokemon's super-effective move that your team dreads. Your opponent gets a little antsy now, they might not want to stay in. So they switch out into something else, you predict this and go for a status move, say for instance Sleep, which shuts down another Pokemon. Now, you can't put another Pokemon to sleep, so they switch out into something else, either that or let you attack them. If they switch, you can go for a damage dealing attack and then continue to go for Spite afterwards, causing them to continuously lose PP until you faint.

But wait, this is not exactly our concept now is it? This is more like having a Pokemon that your opponent just doesn't want to attack in general for fear of losing the PP they need to attack your Pokemon. So how could you make your opponent also not want to faint you, while still crippling their team by forcing them to lose PP?

Destiny Bond is what I immediately thought when I saw this concept. And probably what most other people thought as well. Your opponent can't have you just removing PP from every Pokemon they send at you, they will need to faint you with something. The problem for them is, which Pokemon will it be? They won't want to kill you because they will have to make a sacrifice. If this is still in the early game, then they will probably just send out something they don't really need, but are reluctant to let go. But if we are talking about this scenario in the late game, they will most likely only have the Pokemon they need to win, and they will have to sacrifice one of them or their entire team will be crippled.

Or maybe even CAP 19's ability is Aftermath, or Rough Skin/Iron Barbs. Even if you aren't carrying Destiny Bond with you, your opponent will still have to let something take damage for the good of the team. And these aspects coupled with Encore make for a nasty Pokemon.

Do you see where I am going with this? What if we focused this concept on a Pokemon who could cripple your opponents team by trapping them, removing the main thing that makes them useful, their movepool, and then continuing to ravage their team through use of indirect and residual damage. And because of these things, they will have to faint you, but they won't want to because of this damage and the probability of their own Pokemon dying in the process. Forcing your opponent to lose PP, while potentially statusing and fainting one of their Pokemon all lead to CAP 19 having a lasting impression on the battlefield even after death.

I short, I believe that CAP 19 should be focused around a Pokemon that can permanently cripple the opposing team, in this case through use of PP depletion, and for this reason your opponent has to faint said Pokemon, but is hesitant to do so because of another factor such as Destiny Bond, or an ability that inflicts damage on faint or throughout battle.

 

[Lyren]

I feel like debuffs, particularly Attack/Special Attack debuffs, are a great way to create "damned if you KO damned if you don't" scenarios. Not only does it dissuade the opponent from KOing our CAP by the sheer fact that it's now harder to do so, but it means that if CAP is fainted, whatever switches in has a nice buffer to ensure momentum. So essentially Memento, but without CAP's user pulling the detonation switch (and if you force a switch instead, hey, the CAP has dissuaded the foe from KOing it).

The question, though, is how to make this the most effective: after all, there are plenty of pokemon out there with great debuff moves, but barring Featherdance Murkrow (which never rose high above gimmick level itself) it's never been viable. Would we need to limit CAP's moveset so it has little choice but to use debuffs? Is there a certain stat spread (obviously speaking in general for now) that would optimize a debuffer (top of my head, I'm thinking speed is key, then bulk, unless we have a prankster)? Generally, if debuffs would work well, why haven't they yet?

Yeah I think this is a very important question to address if we want to show that debuffs are indeed viable. So let's look at a case were debuffs are actually used in the meta: Memento.
Now I know that Memento has been brought up a lot in this thread and we've pretty much stated that the move itself isn't the path to take, but we can still learn form it. The question is, what is the difference between memento and other debuff spam that doesn't work? Well, for one, momentum is a problem. Memento's biggest draw is actually the fact that it causes the user to faint, so it waists no time going into the poke that intends to set up on the debuff. This would be the same thing as spamming a debuff move until you faint, only that's not a reliable approach and you don't really have any way to prevent your opponent from switching. How could this be fixed? Well, if CAP 19 could rack up passive damage while it spammed debuff moves, it would force switches so that your opponent was not taking more passive damage than they were dealing out to you. As a bonus, when you finally do faint, they still have a poke in who has been inflicted with at least one debuff, meaning that no matter how hard they try, you'll get a chance to set up on them (unless they KO with volt-turn or clever use of passive damage and protect).

Another major concern is the one Dragonblaze052 brought up: switching. The biggest and most obvious flaw of debuffs is that switching out negates them. For this reason, it's far more popular to boost stats rather than to lower your opponent's. However, boosting your own stats doesn't really force switches, and forcing switches is what kills momentum faster than anything. In the very nature of their names, debuffs are intended to set your opponent behind rather than get you further ahead. As long as you had hazards up the collective damage a debuffer could contribute to both before and after it's fall could potentially be huge.

As far as why this isn't ever seen. Well, for one the distribution options aren't fantastic. Not a ton of things even get the "good" debuff moves. Nothing get's both Eerie Impulse and Featherdance, and don't even get me stated on moves like acid spray (which apart form Eelectross is almost impossible to utilize on the pokes that get it). These moves just have weird typing, I mean, flying types are very rarely defensive, and Electric types don't suffer from a special weakness to begin with to have use of Eerie Impulse.

In conclusion, I think that debuff moves aren't inherently bad, they just have terrible distribution and the pokes that get them usually have better options. The fact that switching removes them isn't necessarily a bad thing in all situations, and it doesn't mean that the one turn it takes to get rid of them isn't a lasting impression. After all, a single free turn can decide a battle.

 

[Jellied Eels]

With DJD's definition in mind, the Lure direction proposed by Darkslay on page 2 makes the most sense imo. I also don't think, as some users have pointed out, that the inevitable ubiquity of CAP 19 during the playtest makes it impossible for it to be built as a lure.

Let's be clear : by "lure" I don't mean the traditional definition of a pokemon using an unusual combination of item/moveset/evs that allows it to surprise and beat one of its usual switch-ins / a pokemon it doesn't normally threaten. Such a pokemon is by definition very much anti-concept : the opponent has the express intent to faint it, and if it does its job correctly then by the end it is still very much alive. However, other types of lure exist.

Let me take an example : a gen V UU Hail Stall team. The word "stall" is applied loosely here, as those teams usually revolve around securing a Stallrein "sweep". The other members are fairly expendable, and can be freely sacrificed to create an ideal endgame situation. Their jobs include finding Walrein a safe opportunity to set up a sub (often the biggest problem when facing HO), but also crippling certain game-ending threats (Resttalkers - tricking a choice item; SubRoost Zapdos - landing a stray Toxic, etc). In this context, a common occurence would for instance be a 1v1 trade-off between the opponent's Spinner and your own Ghost-type pokemon. Letting your Sableye faint to ensure the opposing Blastoise is too crippled to spin against the rest of your team is a valid decision, because it means your Toxic Spikes remain on the field and Stallrein is one step closer to winning the game. The Blastoise user is forced into a dilemna : either he faints the Sableye, which means that he probably won't get the spin off, or he switches out and tries to get rid of it in an other way.
The same logic can be applied to gen VI spikes stacking teams : for the opponent, finding a turn to use Defog can get rid of an immediate problem, but also risks giving a free turn to an HO team and thus potentially jeopardize the game itself.

I feel that building a pokemon along those lines would teach us more about fainting than making Chansey 2.0 (an effective but unthreatening pokemon the opponent doesn't want to faint because it provides set up opportunities), where the decision is left entirely into the hands of the opponent. On the other hand, creating a pokemon that is predictably going to die in certain situations, but can insure that in doing so it furthers the overarching objective of the team itself is going to provide the opponent with a real catch-22.

Obviously, this would mean discussing a team archetype for CAP 19 to fit in, something which has a precedent in Malaconda's Concept Assessment stage...

 

[capefeather]

The concept description is simply: "A Pokemon that dissuades your opponent from fainting it, or can even leave it's presence on the field felt even after it faints." As Ignus pointed out, this says nothing about "wanting" to faint. So I'm not sure that Doug's proposal even really bends the concept as it's described, even if it might contradict other parts of the submission.

Maybe something else should be cleared up, because I think different people are interpreting the "KO is the worst thing to happen" statement differently. The way I see it, a Pokemon can be in the following states:

• Healthy
• Crippled in some way
• Fainted
• Not in the team

The first three states come with the opportunity cost of not using other Pokemon. If the best state for a Pokemon to be in is "not in the team", then it isn't viable. In most situations, being crippled and/or fainted is probably worse than not being in the team, but even then, as long as being healthy is preferable to not being used, the Pokemon is viable. The way I would interpret this concept is, we want the state of participating in battle only to faint, to be generally superior to the state of not participating at all.

I'd liken the process of building CAP 19 to writing a story about a character who has a terminal illness. The character will die, but it's the author's will, not the character's. The story that the author wants to write calls for it. The terminal illness is absolutely bad and undesirable for the character, but it defines him/her in the story. With CAP 19, the KO is generally a given, not necessarily because the Pokemon has a suicidal tactic, but because the overall team strategy involves having it eventually faint.

 

[Tsaeb XIII]

To pick up on the story analogy capefeather gives above, even if CAP 19's KO is a given, we should get to choose the way it will (generally) go. One way of doing this is to have a relatively narrow band of Pokemon that are able to threaten CAP 19. Taking an extreme example, it would be rather easy to predict the switch-in's to a Dark/Ghost Wonder Guard Pokemon - unless something can viably carry Fairy type coverage, can inflict Burn/Poison status, or has access to Mold Breaker, cannot come in to KO a Dark/Ghost Wonder Guard Pokemon, even if it has 1/1/1 defence stats. On the other hand, if Magikarp was thrown into OU, barring now illegal Baton Pass chain shenanigans (Baton Pass/Dragon Dance/Cotton Guard/Amnesia Smeargle, I choose you), anything could come in and KO it. Somewhere between the two extremes of that spectrum, we have the Pokemon that can typically be dealt with once they're in play through the use of revenge killing with priority or Choice Scarf - they are handled by a fairly particular archetype, but within that archetype there are many options to choose from. To pick up on a comment from DJD's summary, at the very least we want the scenario in which CAP 19 gets KO'd to generally be predictable. To make that happen, on a spectrum of Dark/Ghost Wonder Guard 'mon to Magikarp, we want to be closer to the former than the latter. Maybe this means that CAP needs an insanely good defensive typing with a couple of x4 weaknesses that are relevant to physical attacking types (to protect against Hidden Power types being used to adapt), with excellent special bulk and solid physical bulk guaranteeing that only physical attackers carrying the small number of moves that hit CAP for x4 damage can threaten it (this isn't an intent to poll jump and say that's what CAP must look like, it's merely one direction that we could go down that would greatly narrow the number of options the opponent has to KO CAP 19).

Returning back to a discussion of how you can benefit from a KO (or at least make it less detrimental), the cost of a KO is inversely proportional to the amount of control you had over the circumstances in which it took place. If I made a misplay and allowed my opponent to setup, a KO on the next turn is likely to cost me immensely (unless I have already played in such a way as to render one of my other team members unnecessary). On the other hand, if my opponent switches in a check to my current Pokemon, which I deem to no longer be necessary to execute my game plan, leaving it in to deal one more turn of damage and crippling its check in the process of being KO'd leaves me better off than I was beforehand. CAP 19, whether it uses hazards, weather, status or any other avenue to achieve its objective of leaving a lasting impact on the game, should allow its user to have a high degree of control over when the KO occurs.

As for what CAP 19 should be doing in the meantime, I tend to think that we should be aiming to do a job of some kind that eventually becomes unnecessary during the average game. To go with the control aspect, the cost of a KO is proportional to the difference between the value of having the Pokemon in your team and not having it at all. Additionally, the benefit of a KO is proportional to the cost inflicted on the opponent on the turn the KO occurs and the value of the free switch to the available teammates of the Pokemon KO'd. If we are to minimise the overall cost of CAP 19 being KO'd, we therefore need it to have expended most of its value by the time we intend to KO it, and to have a great deal of control over when that KO occurs. The more I think about it, the more I find myself attracted to the 'Wall of Spikes' suggestion made by Deck Knight back on page 1. A Pokemon that has a very narrow range of opponents that can KO it is most likely going to be a wall. A wall that has too much offensive presence is going to be broken. A wall that has no ability to do anything while walling is going to be useless. A 'Wall of Spikes' justifies its inclusion in a team by seizing momentum throughout the match, almost impossible to KO for most Pokemon but not so directly threatening as to be a priority for the opponent. When the user decides that the momentum able to be gained by the Wall is offset by the momentum gained from it being KO'd, they can allow the match situation to arise in which the opponent is able to KO, with the intent of another teammate using the momentum gained from that to finish off the match.

To put it slightly differently, we want to minimise this equation, and I think that a 'Wall of Spikes' offers the best opportunity to do so.
Cost of KO = f1(1/[control]) + f2([value in team]-[value not in team]) - f3([cost inflicted on opponent during KO]) - f4([value of free switch to teammates])

Ideally, we'd come up with a Pokemon for which the minimum value would be "negative" - that is, we're getting a net benefit from the KO - but I would also consider the concept a success if the cost of CAP 19 being KO'd is much less than the cost of the average OU Pokemon being KO'd.

 

[Stratos]

The concept description is simply: "A Pokemon that dissuades your opponent from fainting it, or can even leave it's presence on the field felt even after it faints." As Ignus pointed out, this says nothing about "wanting" to faint. So I'm not sure that Doug's proposal even really bends the concept as it's described, even if it might contradict other parts of the submission.

Maybe something else should be cleared up, because I think different people are interpreting the "KO is the worst thing to happen" statement differently. The way I see it, a Pokemon can be in the following states:

• Healthy
• Crippled in some way
• Fainted
• Not in the team

The first three states come with the opportunity cost of not using other Pokemon. If the best state for a Pokemon to be in is "not in the team", then it isn't viable. In most situations, being crippled and/or fainted is probably worse than not being in the team, but even then, as long as being healthy is preferable to not being used, the Pokemon is viable. The way I would interpret this concept is, we want the state of participating in battle only to faint, to be generally superior to the state of not participating at all.

This is a good idea for CAP20; however, I don't think it fulfills the current concept.

The prime example of a Pokemon that was better off insta-dead than not on the team was Bisharp in VGC13. It often (heck, usually) died before doing almost anything when it was sent in, but it was still a key member of many teams, simply because it allowed its user to maneuver into a good starting position and typically force the opponent not to bring any Intimidate. That being said, though I guess this does qualify as having an impact after death, I don't see how this dissuaded the opponent from fainting it—it could still drop strong +0 sucker punches if left alive. Another example would be Gastrodon in Porii Sames's Rain Stall team from BW1. Basically all it did was counter CM Rachi, and when the opponent had no Rachi, you could basically just sack it instantly and still be glad it was on the team. That didn't discourage the opponent from knocking it out. The two concepts are subtle but distinct.

Frankly, as DJD said, there is no way to engineer a Pokemon that encourages not being knocked out. These situations are rare and...situational, and if a Pokemon is frequently caught in them, it's basically bad. On the flipside, there's almost no way to engineer a Pokemon whose presence isn't felt after its death. Whether it's a breaker on an HO team, a hazard setter on a balance team, or even just any random pokemon that koes any random Pokemon on the opponent's side, if you have any effect on battle it's going to still be felt after your death—and again, the situations where you don't seem impossible to engineer.

So if we're going to have any sort of lasting success with this concept, I think we need to do something like DJD proposed: still study death, but in a different light. How can you make death, while still sucky, less sucky, and use it to your tactical advantage? Two examples I can think of are Healing Wish Jirachi and Deoxys-S, but neither work in current Gen OU. Can we make something that does? Can we find a more creative way to do it? These are questions worth using 2 months of our time for.

 

[capefeather]

Oh, I didn't mean to talk about a Pokemon whose purpose was to be instantly sacrificed. I was trying to fit something like Doug's proposal into the framework of the state of a Pokemon. It was a broad statement of what the concept could possibly be. The point of the terminal illness analogy was to say we also need to make the concept a defining trait of the Pokemon. I feel that if we just leave the discussion at "let's make death less disadvantageous / more advantageous" we risk making the concept a feature of a generic Pokemon, rather than a defining trait, and I don't think that that's where people want to go with this.

 

[Lyren]

As for what CAP 19 should be doing in the meantime, I tend to think that we should be aiming to do a job of some kind that eventually becomes unnecessary during the average game. To go with the control aspect, the cost of a KO is proportional to the difference between the value of having the Pokemon in your team and not having it at all. Additionally, the benefit of a KO is proportional to the cost inflicted on the opponent on the turn the KO occurs and the value of the free switch to the available teammates of the Pokemon KO'd. If we are to minimise the overall cost of CAP 19 being KO'd, we therefore need it to have expended most of its value by the time we intend to KO it, and to have a great deal of control over when that KO occurs. The more I think about it, the more I find myself attracted to the 'Wall of Spikes' suggestion made by Deck Knight back on page 1. A Pokemon that has a very narrow range of opponents that can KO it is most likely going to be a wall. A wall that has too much offensive presence is going to be broken. A wall that has no ability to do anything while walling is going to be useless. A 'Wall of Spikes' justifies its inclusion in a team by seizing momentum throughout the match, almost impossible to KO for most Pokemon but not so directly threatening as to be a priority for the opponent. When the user decides that the momentum able to be gained by the Wall is offset by the momentum gained from it being KO'd, they can allow the match situation to arise in which the opponent is able to KO, with the intent of another teammate using the momentum gained from that to finish off the match.

To put it slightly differently, we want to minimise this equation, and I think that a 'Wall of Spikes' offers the best opportunity to do so.
Cost of KO = f1(1/[control]) + f2([value in team]-[value not in team]) - f3([cost inflicted on opponent during KO]) - f4([value of free switch to teammates])

Ideally, we'd come up with a Pokemon for which the minimum value would be "negative" - that is, we're getting a net benefit from the KO - but I would also consider the concept a success if the cost of CAP 19 being KO'd is much less than the cost of the average OU Pokemon being KO'd.

I feel like this formula you've come up with is what a lot of people in the thread have been trying to get at but you did a pretty good job quantifying. Now we've already agreed that we don't want to make "chansey 2.0" so getting your formula into the negative is all about maximizing f3 and f4 while making sure f1 and f2 don't grow too rapidly in proportion.

With all the weather and debuff comments, two extremely good good options have been presented to promote f4, and even more things exist that were only brought up a few times like terrain moves, Fairy lock, and the mental herb statuses, tailwind, ect. These are all highly momentum sensitive moves that can be timed with the KO to greatly increase the value of free switch to teammates

As far as f3 goes, many recoil options have been mentioned as well as statusing. Leech seed was something possible that I don't think was ever brought up. "Sniping" also seems to have been a popular option though might be more difficult to pull off because of it needing a team archetype to run in.

The strange patten with all of these ideas though is that the "lasting impression" form the concept they're supposed to have are all only temporarily tangible. Few things in the game have tangible permanency (like hazards), and we simply have been talking about something from the short lived effects on the turn after it's KO has a massive impact on the match. We seem to want CAP 19's KO be the turning point of the match. A few times "The point of no-return" has been used to refer to this a few times (I think it'd be cooler if we called it the "Event Horizon" :P) and it seems to be the one thing we mostly agree on, CAP 19 getting KO'd needs to signal a wincon for the team using it (assuming it's been played correctly).


As an aside, I really like the the concept of having a more viable healing wish like Pwnemon just mentioned, but I'm not sure whether or not it's a cop-out on the concept as it doesn't provide your opponent any choice (at least not directly) when CAP 19 is KO'd. If it's built around the concept of an auto-fainting move, what motivation does your opponent have to not just immediately KO it before it get's a chance to use it fainting move?

 

[GoldNinja]

CAP 19 getting KO'd needs to signal a wincon for the team using it (assuming it's been played correctly)

The first thing that comes to mind when hearing this statement and when thinking about the concept in general is something carrying the one-two punch of Aftermath and Destiny Bond. I think that most people are looking at this with the idea that this Pokemon makes its appearance early, and must pose an immediate threat if it is knocked out in the early stages of the match.
But what if the idea of this Pokemon is that it hangs around for awhile?
It doesn't have to die immediately if it is to be dangerous. Also, "wincon" needs to be defined. I think "wincon" should simply refer to a situation where your remaining team can finish off the opponent's. This Pokemon on its own doesn't have to be the one to deal the final blow. However, even though it sounds like I'm making CAP 19 to be a revenge killer, that's not the idea. Instead, CAP 19 could be a "match killer". A well-timed Destiny Bond or switch (activating Aftermath) on your opponent's last remaining real threat to your team could open up the opportunity for the rest of your team to pull off the victory.

 

[NumberCruncher]

The first thing that comes to mind when hearing this statement and when thinking about the concept in general is something carrying the one-two punch of Aftermath and Destiny Bond. I think that most people are looking at this with the idea that this Pokemon makes its appearance early, and must pose an immediate threat if it is knocked out in the early stages of the match.
But what if the idea of this Pokemon is that it hangs around for awhile?
It doesn't have to die immediately if it is to be dangerous. Also, "wincon" needs to be defined. I think "wincon" should simply refer to a situation where your remaining team can finish off the opponent's. This Pokemon on its own doesn't have to be the one to deal the final blow. However, even though it sounds like I'm making CAP 19 to be a revenge killer, that's not the idea. Instead, CAP 19 could be a "match killer". A well-timed Destiny Bond or switch (activating Aftermath) on your opponent's last remaining real threat to your team could open up the opportunity for the rest of your team to pull off the victory.

Switching doesn't set off Aftermath. In fact, Aftermath and Destiny Bond seems like a major anti-synergy.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Switching doesn't set off Aftermath. In fact, Aftermath and Destiny Bond seems like a major anti-synergy.

Thing is the concept does not involve synergy at all, so we shouldn't be worrying about that. These examples are not anti-concept, in fact they are incredibly pro-concept.

 

[NumberCruncher]

Thing is the concept does not involve synergy at all, so we shouldn't be worrying about that. These examples are not anti-concept, in fact they are incredibly pro-concept.

The thing is, he phased it as a "one-two punch", which means he clearly intends both to do something together, which they inherently never can. If Aftermath would already kill the opponent, you wasted your move using Destiny Bond. If Destiny Bond is what you need to kill the opponent, then your ability did nothing the whole game. The problem is that they both do the same thing, but they don't cover different enough spectrums of options the opponent could use to kill CAP 19 to be effective.

 

[Lyren]

The thing is, he phased it as a "one-two punch", which means he clearly intends both to do something together, which they inherently never can. If Aftermath would already kill the opponent, you wasted your move using Destiny Bond. If Destiny Bond is what you need to kill the opponent, then your ability did nothing the whole game. The problem is that they both do the same thing, but they don't cover different enough spectrums of options the opponent could use to kill CAP 19 to be effective.

I think it's important to remember that by this point in CAP 19's development, we shouldn't be trying to build sets. Both Destiny Bond and Aftermath are pro-concept ideas. Though they work terribly together, having access to both of them is something that could make sense as it would just provide CAP 19 more possible options to discourage KO depending on what your team in particular needs.

However, you are also correct that these options are insufficient to discourage several ways from being KO'd. I think we need to revisit some conceptual ideas, like what we actually hope to achieve after CAP 19 has been KO'd. This thread has provided a huge variety of ways that can leave the opponent crippled or your team supported as CAP 19 is KO'd, so what we need to do now is clearly define what we want to happen immediately after CAP 19 is KO'd and then select from the discussed options what the bast way to achieve those conditions are.

One idea I personally like to muse is just applying a lot of concepts that have been brought up in this thread to make a sort of ultimate support poke. I mean, it'd be hard to make sense of flavor wise, but something that could set weather, terrain effects, tailwind, status, debuff, break momentum with mental herb moves, spite, (maybe even the ghost variety of curse), recoil options, destiny bond, ect would be extremely dangerous and hard to predict. This might seem a bit like Fidget except it has a bit different objective, and that objective is the very concept of CAP 19--it doesn't really care about it's own well-being, and in fact hopes to bait getting KO'd at some point because everything it can do in the time it takes to KO it can make it so that the very next thing you send in has a easy and worry-free time to fulfill it's role.

Now I know that might be a bit much (especially to make something that can logically do all those things flavor wise), but the general idea there might work a bit better than the "sniper" idea that's been brought up a few times, if only because it doesn't require quite so strict of a team archetype to put it in which has already been identified as rather difficult to play-test. Since we agree that completely discouraging a KO is basically impossible I think this achieve the next best thing which capefeather Pwnemon and Tsaeb XIII were discussing: stacking the benefit to your team and the harm to your opponents team so much that it completely justifies having CAP 19 get KO'd.

I apologize if I was misunderstanding your views on the concept, but I'd really like to hear some feedback on what I proposed, because it's a pretty crazy concept and some of the aspects of it are completely unprecedented in any of the current metagames.

 

[GoldNinja]

it doesn't really care about it's own well-being, and in fact hopes to bait getting KO'd at some point because everything it can do in the time it takes to KO it can make it so that the very next thing you send in has a easy and worry-free time to fulfill it's role.

Then in that case, I think it would be a good idea to think of roles for CAP 19's potential partners in the metagame.
If it has a sweeper as its partner, is there any way CAP 19's KO could assist in boosting the sweeper, or possibly set up a timely debuff?
If it has a wall as a partner, could CAP 19's KO help its survivability?
If it has a support Pokemon as a partner, could CAP 19's KO allow it to set up status or entry hazards without worrying about Magic Bounce or Rapid Spin/Defog?

These are important questions that need to be answered because I think SolarisFox is on the right track when it comes to this concept.

 

[Agile Turtle]

Making your opponent not want to kill it is probably near impossible, if possible at all. It is also incredibly situational. So rather than making the opponent not want to kill CAP19, we could make the opponent not want to try to kill it.

We could do this by making it difficult to kill CAP19 with any random pokemon or method, and make it so the opponent gets punished if they try to kill it with any random mon or method. This brings back the idea of having to strategically KO CAP19 that DarkSlay and Yilx have discussed many times on IRC. This sounds like it would probably make for a very powerful pokemon, however I do have the feeling that we could accomplish this without making CAP19 broken.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

The thread seems to be dying just a little bit, and though I wasn't planning on writing a second post on the subject until the topic of conversation either moved on naturally or was pushed on by the Topic Leader, I feel a few thoughts couldn't hurt. In answer to Doug's unstated question, yeah, I don't honestly think that a literal interpretation of the concept as it stands is possible – or, more accurately, the concept is really rather lopsided, quite apart from the stipulation that it should dissuade fainting, which, as I and countless others have taken such pains to say, ranges from exceptionally limited to downright impossible as far as current mechanics are concerned.

I want to start with the above to make it clear what my thoughts regarding the concept were, but I think that more important at this point is that we get an idea of how exactly we want to go about building CAP19, with the concept in mind. At this point, I'm focusing on the “dissuades fainting” aspect, as opposed to the “lingering effects” aspect. Here's a thought experiment: What typing actually furthers a concept that wants to dissuade fainting? Other than Aftermath and possibly Gooey or Iron Barbs, what ability is supported by relevance? These are the two most fundamental pieces of any Pokemon, but I can't really see any constructive discussion coming from either thread at this point, because we either have limited options or no base to work from.

Part of this is, again, because we don't currently agree on how to interpret the concept, and yet nearly all the interpretations currently proposed ignore a part of the concept in some way. Making some sort of hyper offensive Pokemon that dies in order to bring something else in isn't a new or particularly invigorating notion. Pretty much every suicide lead ever falls into this camp. Status spreading tanks, aside from not even approaching the “dissuade from fainting” side of the concept, definitely still exist.

Herein is the rub – I worry that, in pursuit of some lofty goal that we don't entirely understand or think through, we end up producing a generic and dull Pokemon that, if interesting from an artistic perspective, did not involve much discussion of a concept or a creation process beyond the necessary (yes, yes, “fucking hypocrite” and all that, I know, but try to pretend I'm someone else saying this for a second). But at the same time, I feel that it's worse to try to dilute the concept to something unrecognisable with a view solely to making the exercise easier for us.

While I still think that the two examples I gave earlier are a reasonable starting point, if a little bit difficult to execute (this refers to my specific scruples with building a CAP with a lot of finely balanced features rather than, in this case, mechanical shortcomings), this is not to say that other options are not possible. Doug's suggestion of a predictable fainting scenario immediately suggests all manner of things we could do in order to “tweak” a battle scenario under reasonably common circumstances – a poison/electric Pokemon, for example, that baits out strong ground-type attacks to give free switches is fairly boring in and of itself, and yet if it were to pair this with Encore to ensure both its own demise and the safety of the Pokemon that follows it into battle, as well as to add efficacy to its use of Destiny Bond a la Wobbuffet, we begin to see a Pokemon developing that has the potential to teach us something. One wild idea I had, following this train of thought, was something involving Wonder Guard of all things – a mono-Electric Pokemon with this ability, or indeed anything with one or few weaknesses, could easily act as faint bait in this sense, especially if it was comparatively weak in the OU metagame by stats and offensive ability; consequently, if given such moves as Encore or Torment or Disable to aid its role, it becomes a Pokemon that does not currently exist in the metagame, as well as a Pokemon that actually does dissuade the opponent from killing it, given that it would reliably provide a set-up opportunity, and nothing else, at the cost of a teamslot.

Naturally the above is fairly objectionable in terms of, well, the fact that it necessitates Wonder Guard of all things (we have our honour to think of, after all), but the concept of a dedicated setup granter, in the vein of Wobbuffet of old (but viable in the current climate) which has, I think, been suggested by more than a few people before now, is certainly a possible route. I do think, if this post has a point to make, it should be that at this point we should be coming to a conclusion about what role we want CAP19 to play in the metagame and analysing how we would go about implementing such a course of action – and indeed whether it necessitates any exceptional circumstances. So, then.

For those who don't read the above, three paths for taking the CAP forward:

- Pokemon that runs two viable sets, one of which employs Destiny Bond and the other of which is a support set, ideally mutually exclusive, such that the opponent is hesitant to attack for the KO with their would-be counters, as detailed before.
- One-trick, one-turn support Pokemon with no offensive presence
- Dedicated supporter that can guarantee a turn of set-up following its demise, but without resorting to Memento or other self-KO moves (i.e. it takes into account the opponent's choice to KO at a given time and with, crucially, a given move, in an ideal world).

 

[CerberusSONE]

I would like to reiterate something that many people already reiterated.

Frankly, as DJD said, there is no way to engineer a Pokemon that encourages not being knocked out. These situations are rare and...situational, and if a Pokemon is frequently caught in them, it's basically bad. On the flipside, there's almost no way to engineer a Pokemon whose presence isn't felt after its death. Whether it's a breaker on an HO team, a hazard setter on a balance team, or even just any random pokemon that koes any random Pokemon on the opponent's side, if you have any effect on battle it's going to still be felt after your death—and again, the situations where you don't seem impossible to engineer.

Let's admit that there can be no way (or ways to make that are highly situational) to make CAP19's knock out felt after death.

Making your opponent not want to kill it is probably near impossible, if possible at all. It is also incredibly situational. So rather than making the opponent not want to kill CAP19, we could make the opponent not want to try to kill it.

We could do this by making it difficult to kill CAP19 with any random pokemon or method, and make it so the opponent gets punished if they try to kill it with any random mon or method. This brings back the idea of having to strategically KO CAP19 that DarkSlay and Yilx have discussed many times on IRC. This sounds like it would probably make for a very powerful pokemon, however I do have the feeling that we could accomplish this without making CAP19 broken.

I like this idea.
I think this calls for defining which attacks/statuses/weather conditions we want CAP19 to resist and be weak to.
In terms of moves, perhaps resisting many strong attacks would improve its chances to punish the opponent that attempts to faint it, rather than accomplishing in doing so.

However, I don't think this proposed aspect of CAP19 would work well with another proposed aspect of CAP19 that I'd like for it to have:

The strange patten with all of these ideas though is that the "lasting impression" form the concept they're supposed to have are all only temporarily tangible. Few things in the game have tangible permanency (like hazards), and we simply have been talking about something from the short lived effects on the turn after it's KO has a massive impact on the match. We seem to want CAP 19's KO be the turning point of the match. A few times "The point of no-return" has been used to refer to this a few times (I think it'd be cooler if we called it the "Event Horizon" :P) and it seems to be the one thing we mostly agree on, CAP 19 getting KO'd needs to signal a wincon for the team using it (assuming it's been played correctly).

We want to make the KO of CAP19 the defining point of a match, the part of the battle that shows the user of CAP19 that he/she will win the battle.

Again, we want CAP19's KO to be the defining point of the match. But can the community be satisfied with making CAP19's death simply useful to its user?

So if we're going to have any sort of lasting success with this concept, I think we need to do something like DJD proposed: still study death, but in a different light. How can you make death, while still sucky, less sucky, and use it to your tactical advantage? Two examples I can think of are Healing Wish Jirachi and Deoxys-S, but neither work in current Gen OU. Can we make something that does? Can we find a more creative way to do it? These are questions worth using 2 months of our time for.

You make CAP19's death less sucky by making its time alive used well to your advantage.
You do this by making CAP19 a attacker vacuum.

In depth, CAP19 takes little damage from many attacks, making it so that the opponent is making unsuccessful attempts at fainting it. During this time, CAP19 can could also lower the opponent's PP of its attacking moves while the opponent is making slug-paced progress.
I think we should make the "lasting impact"of CAP19 the frustration in trying to knock it out. The frustration of trying to kill something that is well-receptive of your attacks, as well as something that lowers your PP everytime you attempt to kill it, will allow for some lasting impact after CAP19's death.

 

[FireArrow]

Despite the size of your post, I think you've described the current issue to the T.

For those who don't read the above, three paths for taking the CAP forward:

- Pokemon that runs two viable sets, one of which employs Destiny Bond and the other of which is a support set, ideally mutually exclusive, such that the opponent is hesitant to attack for the KO with their would-be counters, as detailed before.
- One-trick, one-turn support Pokemon with no offensive presence
- Dedicated supporter that can guarantee a turn of set-up following its demise, but without resorting to Memento or other self-KO moves (i.e. it takes into account the opponent's choice to KO at a given time and with, crucially, a given move, in an ideal world).

I actually very much like your proposal of a Wondergaurd, Wobbofetesque Pokemon. It does, however, not dissuade the opponent from fainting it, but I think we can all agree by now that a perfect answer isn't gonna come out of this. The thing everyone should understand about a lure option is that the only way to circumnavigate the "he knows we're a lure" issue is a wonder guard Pokemon balanced by shit stats. Without it, they just avoid the obvious trap, with it, they have no other option if they want to kill CAP19.

Your first path is probably the only way we could take a route with hazards (and probably the best way to utilize the path as well), unfortunately, everyone and their dog has a reversion to anything related to SR and Spikes (now that I think about it, toxic spikes would be a wonderful way to do.) While I agree that it isn't the best way to go about things, I think it's still fair to point out that:
a) This pokemon would not end up like Deo-S, more so, an OU viable version of Froslass.
b) It doesn't matter if they're defogged away, you still had a lasting effect after death while discouraging death. Isn't that enough?

I don't entirely understand your second point, so I'll leave it open.

The third one is still my favorite and I'm a bit disappointing about the lack of discussion regarding it. Everyone's happy to throw down their undergarments for weather but ignore the more useable options. Namely, trickroom and tailwind. Because OU has no dedicated setter for either and a barrel full of pokemon that can abuse it, these two moves aren't gated by the same things as weather (I would include terrains, but they don't fulfill the latter.)

 

[NumberCruncher]

Part of this is, again, because we don't currently agree on how to interpret the concept, and yet nearly all the interpretations currently proposed ignore a part of the concept in some way.

I kind of disagree on this point. I think the problem is more that people are trying to agree on how not to interpret the concept, rather than how they do want to approach it. When you start getting right down to it, the problem we're having is that the assessment so far has been as follows:

1) Person 1 "I think that Concept A falls in line with the goal of this CAP"
2) Person 2 "No, that's boring and not in the spirit the CAP was intended. Here's Concept B. It falls more in line with the spirit of this CAP."
3) Person 3 "Concept B isn't viable at all in this metagame. Let's go with Concept C. By taking a few liberties with the goal, we can make a more viable CAP."
4) Person 4 "Concept C really doesn't fit with the goal of this CAP. I'd like to propose a new concept that fits with the goal very closely, which I like to call Concept A."
...

See the problem? We're pretty much stuck in a rut where we introduce the same concepts over and over again, just to shoot them down near immediately. Whenever a new idea does manage to slip into the discussion, it gets shot down pretty quickly. At that point, it becomes another idea that gets recycled over and over again, just to get shot down whenever it comes up.

Here are the ideas that have been proposed thus far in this topic.

Defensive Hazard Setter
Status Shuffler
Suicide Lead
Destiny Bond Wallbreaker
Choice Attacker Bait
Grudge/Spite Wall
Iron Barb/Rough Skin/Gooey/Static/Mummy Exploiter
Tailwind/Trick Room Setter
Weather Setter
Memento Detonator
Un-Mega-Banette
Featherdance/Eerie Impulse/Other Debuff Spammer
Aftermath Detonator
Set-up Aid
Healing Wish Healer
Electric Terrain/Gravity Setter
Strategic Sniper
Fairy Lock Locker
Metal Burst Bomb

Every submission thus far is either one or a combination of these basic premises. It's clear that even if you don't agree that one of the ideas on this list really fits what this CAP is trying to accomplish, a significant portion of the community disagrees, so let's stop trying to ascertain what isn't the CAP and focus on what is the CAP.

At this point my best advice is, with DarkSlays permission since he is the Topic Leader, to bring the ideas proposed in this topic to a vote what people want to see out of this CAP. We don't really have to chose only one of the above either. Ideally, the right pokemon should have a good number of these traits to be effective at what we want it to do, so we could enforce, for example, the top 3-5 picks be an aspect of the CAP Pokemon.

 

[Lyren]

Despite the size of your post, I think you've described the current issue to the T.



I actually very much like your proposal of a Wondergaurd, Wobbofetesque Pokemon. It does, however, not dissuade the opponent from fainting it, but I think we can all agree by now that a perfect answer isn't gonna come out of this. The thing everyone should understand about a lure option is that the only way to circumnavigate the "he knows we're a lure" issue is a wonder guard Pokemon balanced by shit stats. Without it, they just avoid the obvious trap, with it, they have no other option if they want to kill CAP19.

Your first path is probably the only way we could take a route with hazards (and probably the best way to utilize the path as well), unfortunately, everyone and their dog has a reversion to anything related to SR and Spikes (now that I think about it, toxic spikes would be a wonderful way to do.) While I agree that it isn't the best way to go about things, I think it's still fair to point out that:
a) This pokemon would not end up like Deo-S, more so, an OU viable version of Froslass.
b) It doesn't matter if they're defogged away, you still had a lasting effect after death while discouraging death. Isn't that enough?

I don't entirely understand your second point, so I'll leave it open.

The third one is still my favorite and I'm a bit disappointing about the lack of discussion regarding it. Everyone's happy to throw down their undergarments for weather but ignore the more useable options. Namely, trickroom and tailwind. Because OU has no dedicated setter for either and a barrel full of pokemon that can abuse it, these two moves aren't gated by the same things as weather (I would include terrains, but they don't fulfill the latter.)

I think the important part of part of the lure direction is that it has to have more than one viable set which can lure different things. Even if you're opponent knows you're a lure, if they can't figure out what for then they can end up sending in the wrong thing to KO you. However, I feel like that's setting up that sort of role would make CAP 19 not very user-friendly and really blur being able to tell what the original concept was just from looking at the final product.

While hazards are pretty much the only thing tangible thing that could create the "lasting effect" I'm a tad concerned that they're a little counter-productive if not done exactly how bugmaniacbob described. While his idea makes perfect sense in theory, I don't really like the idea of having CAP 19 try to lure and trade 1 for 1 with a poke in the first few turns. The biggest reason why actually goes back to the first few posts on here:

"Decisions on which Pokemon to switch in and out become more concrete as Pokemon are eliminated from teams."
While in theory you can look at your opponents team and be able the infer what the biggest threats to your team are going to be, it's very hard to say for sure at the beginning of a match. Setting up CAP 19 as a high-risk hazard setter seems like a very frustrating idea for both people in the match, and I'm not sure that's what we want.

Personally I really like the tailwind idea and hope this get's explored more. Trick room on the other hand I'm a bit more concerned with. For the most part a lot of the ideas seem to imply high speed to ensure you can get off your support before you're KO'd on that fateful turn. This of course isn't really possible with Trick Room / Magic Room / Wonder Room because they have that awful -7 priority meaning that you're almost certain to get KO'd before you can set it. When we consider all the utility options (which I hope we will soon because of NumberCruncher 's post) I think it's important to keep in mind that Fidgit might do some of them better than CAP 19 would, and why or why not we wouldn't want to redundantly give CAP 19 some of the same options.

 

[FireArrow]

I think the important part of part of the lure direction is that it has to have more than one viable set which can lure different things. Even if you're opponent knows you're a lure, if they can't figure out what for then they can end up sending in the wrong thing to KO you. However, I feel like that's setting up that sort of role would make CAP 19 not very user-friendly and really blur being able to tell what the original concept was just from looking at the final product

If our concept was "The Best Lure", then yes, your correct. However, in this particular concept, we need to lure in a popular Pokemon that another target Pokemon can set-up on. Your opponent will know what your luring in just by looking at your team and seeing "hey, there's one of the Pokemon CAP19 was supposed to help set-up." It gets to the point to where we need to dictate 3 users on our team just to remain unpredictable, and even then, it's still a 50/50 guess.

We simply cannot base CAP19 around baiting something in, if we want something to come in, we need to force it in. The only way to do that is to make our target baits the ONLY Pokemon who can reliably take out CAP19. Meaning, your opponent either brings it in allowing you to faint and set-up something dangerous, or leave it as an insurmountable wall. Wondergaurd accomplishes this, but if you have an alternative way, I'm open to it.

While hazards are pretty much the only thing tangible thing that could create the "lasting effect" I'm a tad concerned that they're a little counter-productive if not done exactly how bugmaniacbob described. While his idea makes perfect sense in theory, I don't really like the idea of having CAP 19 try to lure and trade 1 for 1 with a poke in the first few turns. The biggest reason why actually goes back to the first few posts on here:

"Decisions on which Pokemon to switch in and out become more concrete as Pokemon are eliminated from teams."
While in theory you can look at your opponents team and be able the infer what the biggest threats to your team are going to be, it's very hard to say for sure at the beginning of a match. Setting up CAP 19 as a high-risk hazard setter seems like a very frustrating idea for both people in the match, and I'm not sure that's what we want.

I agree with this. Hazards, while getting more crap than they deserve, still do have inherit issues.

Personally I really like the tailwind idea and hope this get's explored more. Trick room on the other hand I'm a bit more concerned with. For the most part a lot of the ideas seem to imply high speed to ensure you can get off your support before you're KO'd on that fateful turn. This of course isn't really possible with Trick Room / Magic Room / Wonder Room because they have that awful -7 priority meaning that you're almost certain to get KO'd before you can set it. When we consider all the utility options (which I hope we will soon because of NumberCruncher 's post) I think it's important to keep in mind that Fidgit might do some of them better than CAP 19 would, and why or why not we wouldn't want to redundantly give CAP 19 some of the same options.

Trickroom would take an extra turn (i.e. sturdy), giving whatever comes next 3 turns to abuse it - the same as tailwind.

 

[namemaker]

Well, I lurked for CAP 18 and have reread a couple of the older CAP processes. So I will make my contribution to this one. And by contribution, I will look at each question and give my opinion on that question.

• How can a Pokemon leave a long-lasting effect on the rest of the battle with just it's moves?

What is wrong here is Fidgit does this. Fidgit's stats are decent, but offensively it is easily outclassed. It has a redeeming feature in that it has a brilliant movepool that its unique ability, persistent, can use. So this mon is beginning to sound like a one-use fidgit.

• Is it even possible for a Pokemon to leave a lasting effect on on the battle, even after it faints?

Well, technically, lots of pokemon do this. Sweepers who KO at least 2 mons before dying leave a lasting impression. Memento/Healing Wish are important moves that see a lot of niche use and, healing wish especially cause a victory or rage-quit.

• How the hell is it different from simply ramming a sacrificial martyr into your opponent's team and hoping it punches holes in it?

Well, the point of this mon, from what I can tell, is that is a sacrificial martyr, but not an offensive one. The point of this CAP is to see if a mon being KOed can leave a lasting impression. This pokemon will (hopefully) be designed as a defesive mon that robs the foe of the seeming adavantage of it being KOed.

• Building on the previous question, is it possible to build this Pokemon as a defensive threat rather than a "Glass Cannon"?

Yes. There are many of defesive options captilizing on KOs, from healing wish to destiny bond and even grudge. Glass cannons are more commonly used, but they do not have any moves that rely on KOs, except retialate. There are moves that harm the user, but few that KO 'em, like explosion.

You may wonder at what I just did above, and what it accomplished. What I set out to accomplish on this post was to point out that, if look at each question, we may be ignoring what is currently in the metagame

 

[lufan131]

Questions To Be Answered:

• How can a Pokemon leave a long-lasting effect on the rest of the battle with just it's moves?

A pokemon can leave a lasting effect on the battle with just moves, if those moves are either like destiny bond, or a status move(Something like a toxic or spore)

• How is it different from simply ramming a sacrificial martyr into your opponent's team and hoping it punches holes in it?

It's relatively sacrificial, however, not one that directly boosts the user, so much as puts the opponent at a disadvantage.

• Building on the previous question, is it possible to build this Pokemon as a defensive threat rather than a "Glass Cannon"?

It's possible, however, the idea of glass is why this was created, I believe. Considering glass is something that when broken, leaves an effect, that lasts until directly effected.

• Is it even possible for a Pokemon to leave a lasting effect on on the battle, even after it faints?

Yes, either through status, entry hazards like spikes and stealth rock, things that when fainted hurt the opponent, like aftermath or destiny bond. Perhaps, we could even come up with an ability that does any of these(Other than aftermath), after the pokemon is fainted.

• Could changing your opponent's way of thinking even be plausible? From, "I need to take CAP X out!", to, "If I take CAP X out, I'll be in trouble...!"

It's possible, however, not very easy. The only way would be through something that directly effects them when it faints, like aftermath, or destiny bond, mimento, or even something new, as this is CAP.

 

[FMD]

In depth, CAP19 takes little damage from many attacks, making it so that the opponent is making unsuccessful attempts at fainting it. During this time, CAP19 cancould also lower the opponent's PP of its attacking moves while the opponent is making slug-paced progress.

Do you know what this is called? It's PP stalling. This is Chansey with Spite and Pressure. It does not dissuade the opponent from killing it, it just refuses to die. If I could, I would kill off a Pokemon such as this the first time it shows up every time without exception, even moreso than any other member of the team. Remember, hard to kill does not fulfill this concept in the least.

a) This pokemon would not end up like Deo-S, more so, an OU viable version of Froslass.

Let's make a quick comparison. If we tier shifted Froslass's to OU, she would have stats of 80/90/80/90/80/120. Compare to Deoxys-S and its 50/95/90/95/90/180. High speed, mediocre-low bulk, barely usable offenses and high speed. Both Pokemon have hazards to set and decent coverage on both sides (though Deoxys has much better coverage), including a priority move. Would an OU Froslass really be all that different from an OU Deoxys-S?




Now as far as the idea that we make this CAP set up bait, how would that help us at all? If we let Mega Gyarados max out its Dragon Dances, we would need Mega Medicham AND Talonflame both to be able to KO it. If we burn or Toxic it, it's still a Mega Gyarados with doubled Atk and it could sweep our entire team before the residual damage took it out. This situation gets much, much worse if we let Mega Mawile get behind a Substitute and start building Swords Dances. How is this supposed to help us win by letting the opponent set up ad naseum?

 

[FireArrow]

Let's make a quick comparison. If we tier shifted Froslass's to OU, she would have stats of 80/90/80/90/80/120. Compare to Deoxys-S and its 50/95/90/95/90/180. High speed, mediocre-low bulk, barely usable offenses and high speed. Both Pokemon have hazards to set and decent coverage on both sides (though Deoxys has much better coverage), including a priority move. Would an OU Froslass really be all that different from an OU Deoxys-S?

Yes, because Froslass has destiny bond. When Deo-S comes onto the feild, you want to kill it ASAP. When Froslass does, you have to think twice about pounding it in fear of losing a Pokemon. Froslass uses its ability to dissuade the opponent from killing it to set more layers, and once it does go down, it has the lasting effect of entry hazards and a KOd lead. That's pretty pro-concept if you ask me.