CAP 20 CAP 20 - Part 7 - Secondary Ability Discussion

[HeaLnDeaL]

I just want to reply and throw my support behind both Heatproof and Early Bird.

Heatproof, beyond helping the Calm Mind set resist fire moves, also halves the damage from burns which is really nifty since at that point leftovers pretty much recovers any damage lost from a burn. Because of this added mechanic, I think Heatproof is superior to Thick Fat (especially since we already 4x resist Ice).

Early Bird is another ability that can help out Calm Mind, as it makes Rest a lot safer option. I don't want to speculate on what recovery moves we may or may not end up with, but Rest has the benefit of healing HP and status. And if you wake up faster, then essentially it means you can use Rest faster and regain HP faster if you're in a pinch. Overall, I can see Early Bird as an ability that lets status be a non-issue and can help aid in the bulk of the Calm Mind set.

That said, I don't particularly hate Battle Armor/Shell Armor either, just that I don't like quite as much.

 

[Korski]

I think No Competitive Ability is absolutely the way to go here. Water Veil strikes a clean balance between the two sets and, despite its relatively meek advantages, establishes a necessary and focused direction for the CAP as a whole: immunity to damaging status a.k.a. the bane of anything that wants to stay in for a while. Considering how we want to carve out a niche for this boosting sweeper in a metagame saturated with boosting sweepers, this is actually a pretty significant thing, so giving players the option to skip it for superfluous options like an immunity to Taunt or Intimidate seems like a total distraction to me. I think for any ability to be chosen over NCA, it would have to be at least tangentially related to a decision we've already made or a direction we've already chosen in previous steps, instead of just a bonus option that can be abused because the opponent will assume the CAP is running Water Veil. IMO nothing suggested so far fits that criteria.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I think No Competitive Ability is absolutely the way to go here. Water Veil strikes a clean balance between the two sets and, despite its relatively meek advantages, establishes a necessary and focused direction for the CAP as a whole:

I'm not going to say that I disagree with us having No Competitive Abillity (Infact I am currently also thinking that it might be a good idea) but it doesn't really create a balance between the two sets when it helps out the Dragon Dance set more

 

[capefeather]

I think that a secondary ability is plausible if it carves out a significant niche against threats that are on the list of threats to possibly set up on, while minimizing the risk of a concept distraction. We should be honest and precise about what various proposed abilities do for us that's relevant to what we're supposed to be doing. I'll cover the three abilities that I think have the most solid justifications along these lines.

Mold Breaker's main significant niche is for countering Pressure from Suicune and Unaware from Quagsire, both uncommon Pokemon in the B+ viability rank. Against Mega Slowbro, even +6 crit Scald does 50.2 - 59.1% without Special Attack investment, so despite Mega Slowbro being a fairly common A+ rank threat, the selling point on it isn't that great. I don't see this being very distracting because it primarily deals with immunities and the only relevant immunities in our case are Water-type immunities (maybe stuff like Levitate and Magic Bounce depending on the movepool as well).

Clear Body / White Smoke's main target of interest to us is Mega Manectric's Intimidate. Landorus-T's Intimidate is really more of a bonus, since it's supposed to be a check to DD and +0 Waterfall already does plenty, but I wouldn't say that it's all that distracting, either. Manectric is a somewhat uncommon A rank threat.

Heatproof is obviously targeted at Fire-types, of which there are several of note. Going solely off of viability and popularity, Heatproof seems to have the largest niche. It might be cliche because it's a generic resistance ability, but this actually arguably works in its favour, especially since CAP is supposed to be able to set up on Fire-types, anyway.

 

[acidphoenix]

@allpeople- I am going to argue for Thick Fat over Heatproof because Heatproof outclasses Thick Fat, because I don't feel like it would be healthy for an ability secondary to Water Veil to get no-damage burns post-Leftovers and having burns prevent other status, whereas with Water Veil there are other statuses, which you do not auto-prevent, and all you get back is +6.25% health/turn.

So far, I still like Clear Body, Mold Breaker, and Thick Fat for reasons already argued(for Thick Fat arguing for Heatproof), and would prefer NCA to everything else.

mod edit: removed comment referencing deleted post

 

[hendrix96]

I'm going to put my support behind
Early Bird as not only does it make rest a decent recovery move, if we don't get any other recovery move. But it also makes us less susceptible to status via rest, and let's us deal with sleep inducers.
This would be quite useful for the calm mind set.

Really Early bird is not that bad of an ability this generation because of sleeps nerf. The only reason I think early bird is not used that often is because most Pokemon that get it are either not bulky enough to use effectively or have an ability that is much better then early bird, let's say scrappy on kangaskhan for example.

 

[v]

Early Bird is a good ability, but works better on bulkier mons. In BWLC I remember seeing a few Early Bird Houndours rather than the formerly ubiquitous Flash Fire and it worked pretty well thanks to Eviolite. The reason it gets a bad rap is because Insomnia exists and is, in general, much better. That said, I think Early Bird would be cooler because otherwise we just have a mon that can choose a status to be immune to which is, to use the parlance of our times, pretty gay.

 

[Deck Knight]

Just to consolidate some of the best abilities (imo) and my thoughts here:

Heatproof: Unarguably one of the stronger competitive abilities mentioned. A Fire-resistant Steel-type is a great thing to have, and I could actually see a SpD oriented CM set with this ability for the sheer fact that most Fire-typed Pokemon in OU use special-attacks. The burn damage reduction is also a neat feature, allowing Leftovers to neutralize burn damage. The DD set will always run Water Veil, there is little reason for it to want a Fire resistance when it can be entirely immune to Burn. I think relative to Thick Fat, Heatproof should be considered. Yes, it is *stronger* than Thick Fat, but both elements of Heatproof are highly desirable and not overpowered.

Clear Body: This ability works well on both sets, preventing stat-drops on the CM set and nullifying Intimidate on the DD set. The burn immunity from Water Veil is still better by a wide margin because of the switchin opportunities a resisted Scald presents, but from a neutral position Clear Body gives a lot of leeway to the DD set to become threatening to a wider variety of threats.

Shed Skin: Strictly inferior to Water Veil regarding burns, but potentially monstrous on the CM + Rest Set. It would make PP Stalling opponents much harder because you wouldn't sleep in interim turns (in which case use Water Veil), but the ability to Rest to full health and recover from sleep in a single action can allow you to net multiple boosts. Early Bird is more consistent in when your Rest sleep ends, but Shed Skin is much more unpredictable and adds to the unpredictability of both sets.

Sticky Hold: Mentioned multiple times, this is a very niche ability, but preserves both of the core items to the two different sets and allows CAP a freer hand to set up on Pokemon that could run Trick to disrupt, including Rotom-W, Lati@s, and other Psychic types.

The other abilities mentioned don't feel, to me, like they offer a significant enough niche or setup opportunity to contrast them with the reliability and consistency of Water Veil, and so I'd argue one of these four or No Competitive Ability would be the best course of action.

 

[v]

Shed Skin is just gonna make the cm set Revenankh Mk2. Early Bird+Rest has a significantly lower chance of becoming extremely degenerative than Shed Skin and doesnt rely on the RNG so it becomes more consistent without being gaily overpowered

 

[BigWigs]

Chiming in again, my opinions have slightly shifted towards Heatproof.

With Heatproof, we can address burn damage for CM via reducing it, as well as giving it a helpful resistance to Fire. Calculations have already been ran, but being able to take attacks such as Victini's V-Create, Talonflame's Flare Blitz, and Volcarona's Fire Blast is certainly a helpful quality. Unless a bulky Dragon Dance set becomes popular, I doubt Heatproof will be used on it much, and I'd imagine Calm Mind would actually run Heatproof on some sets, but more of as an optional, complementary option to Water Veil.

I also want to talk a little more on Suction Cups. No sweeper enjoys a Roar/Whirlwind to the face, ruining their sweep. This ability would give CAP a niche over fellow sweepers, having to be stopped via brute force (and burns, seeing as no Water Veil here), but I doubt it can overshadow Water Veil seeing as phasing is mostly restricted to Skarmory/Hippowdon.

 

[Hokealogenous]

Heatproof seems like a perfectly reasonable option if we want an ability that benefits one set over the other. Obviously Water Veil improves the DD set but the extra defensive merits afforded by Heatproof make it a decent alternative for the cm set for reasons already mentioned. Just throwing some more support in for Heatproof.

 

[trc]

Most people know where I stand; but srk1214 says I have to be ~impartial~ and ~unbiased~. However the most supported options are:

NCA
Heatproof
Clear Body / White Smoke
Early Bird
Shed Skin

I don't want to justify anything, it should be obvious anyway if you've been reading the thread.

 

[nyttyn]

-1 to Shed Skin. It's gotten some pretty convincing arguments against it, and the potential effects of a ShedRest set (along with the RNG fishing that it would entail) sounds both potentially powerful enough to overshadow the primary, but also frankly obnoxious to play against. Mostly for the primary reason (though one has to admit it sound super awful to play against), this ability is being removed from the slate.

For the next track, even though this is a secondary ability, it's no less important. Thus, reflecting that, have some unnecessarily 'epic' (and not in the way you kids use, get off my lawn) orchestral music.

Onto the polls.