Lighting Rod would also work, but would not give the health regeneration. Neither would be that good. Plus Volt absorb is another health regain ability. That's one of my issues with Volt Absorb. It seems like regenerator to some extent, except it grants an immunity but makes it more difficult to casually use. Too similar in my opinion. And lightning Rod would just be useless.
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CAP 21 CAP 21 - Part 7 - Secondary Ability Discussion
- Thread starter DetroitLolcat
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Rattled still seems like a solid option since it is a very good ability that can probably keep up with Regenerator, provide a fairly good switch-in opportunity, and while the +1 speed boost would be awesome I dont think it will threaten anything we don't want it to threaten. If we want CAP to be seen without a mega stone, this ability wouldnt help out thay goal though.
Intimidate would allow CAP to come in and scare out some physical 'mons (namely Talonflame) while helping shore up it's weaker defense while it is in its base form. Also an ability that wouldnt help the base form stick around as it would help it come in and mega evolve.
Mold Breaker is an ability I hadn't thought of, but sounds really cool to me. Being able to horribly cripple Mega Sableye or set down hazards in front of it seems like a pretty amazing thing and would provide a good incentive for it to stick to its base form for awhile.
Volt Absorb has a fairly narrow scope and would be interesting since there it would also not interfere with the Threats list. Giving it an electric immunity would give the base form a pretty usable ability to switch into electric or grass type attacks for a Water-type and handle them (Plus potential healing would be handy.) I say the idea has merit.
Edit: Blackdrakon30: I can see that point, but the main usage would more likely be for the electric immunity vs the healing since the latter relies on switching into an electric attack and would be a bit harder to guarantee. And imo that makes all the difference.
Intimidate would allow CAP to come in and scare out some physical 'mons (namely Talonflame) while helping shore up it's weaker defense while it is in its base form. Also an ability that wouldnt help the base form stick around as it would help it come in and mega evolve.
Mold Breaker is an ability I hadn't thought of, but sounds really cool to me. Being able to horribly cripple Mega Sableye or set down hazards in front of it seems like a pretty amazing thing and would provide a good incentive for it to stick to its base form for awhile.
Volt Absorb has a fairly narrow scope and would be interesting since there it would also not interfere with the Threats list. Giving it an electric immunity would give the base form a pretty usable ability to switch into electric or grass type attacks for a Water-type and handle them (Plus potential healing would be handy.) I say the idea has merit.
Edit: Blackdrakon30: I can see that point, but the main usage would more likely be for the electric immunity vs the healing since the latter relies on switching into an electric attack and would be a bit harder to guarantee. And imo that makes all the difference.
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Ehhhhh... No.
I don't think it's fair to shoot a thought-out suggestion down like that, honestly I don't think it's a bad suggestion either. Especially because of how CAP21 seems to want to deal with threatening special attackers more than Landos and the like. That having been said, my concern with Volt Absorb is exactly what was mentioned in the original post;
jas61292 said:
The fact that it borders on being a niche ability. I don't think that should be an instant shoot-down for this idea without further judgement, but that is a big reason of why I'm hesitant to throw a bunch of weight behind this idea.DetroitLolcat said:
One other thing, too, is the fact that multiple people have stated the balance a second ability should achieve is both being not too niche and also mixing well with the primary ability (Regenerator). Maybe I'm not the most experienced person to say this, but I feel like Volt Absorb does that. Maybe even better than Intimidate and Mold Breaker do, but also maybe I shouldn't say those kinds of things.
^My thoughts.
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So I'm not 100% sure how two abilities are meant to compliment each other since you can't use them at the same time, so I'm going to assume that complimenting the primary ability means doing what it can't. As I said earlier, what Regen fails to do is provide CAP21 with a viability boost without forcing it to stay in the base forme to take advantage of its ability. With the stats our base forme has, this is not a favourable situation, and so we must give it an ability that allows it to Mega Evolve as quickly as possible but still boosts the CAP's viability. Some activated abilities such as Volt Absorb and Rattled can give us use before Mega Evolution, but they are situational and so can be useless for certain games. Hence, abilities such as Intimidate, which are instantaneous (they are activated when switching in, which is something we're going to do anyway to Mega Evolve) allow us a guaranteed boost in viability even when we Mega Evolve on the first turn - something which other abilities such as Regen, Volt Absorb and Mold Breaker cannot. Usefully, Intimidate actually increases the number of Pokemon we can Mega Evolve on too, making it an excellent choice for Secondary Ability.
Is this what you were asking? I'm somewhat worried that I'm answering your question wrong/a different question.
Edit: just saw this:
Why do you think it compliments Regen well? Why do you think it compliments Regen better than Intimidate or Mold Breaker? Please specify the reasoning behind your thoughts.
Good point, sorry. My thinking was that it serves as a better alternative to Regenerator than those two, which may not qualify as "mixing well" reflecting back on it. Or, rather, it creates a more comparable decision, is what I mean. For example:KhosroTheGreat said:
Regen vs. Intimidate - Decision between HP or Defense
Regen vs. Mold Breaker - Decision between HP or Situational Advantage (Toxic on Magic Bounce Sableye, stuff that's been covered already)
Regen vs. Volt Absorb - HP vs HP, in-depth, the ability to regain HP whenever needed, or the situational ability to do that in addition to a Thunder Wave and Electric immunity.
My supporting it as a better alternative is entirely subjective, but that's my reasoning. I guess I interpreted "complimenting abilities" as abilities that are comparable enough to where they're about as viable as each other because of their similarities. Even though that's for sure not entirely true.
Now that I think about it... We should probably think about Motor Drive rather than Volt Absorb. If we want CAP to have a secondary ability that would suit its desire to Mega Evolve right away, being able to switch in on an electric move and nullify it while getting a +1 speed boost would work really well for that.
That said, I do believe if we want CAP's secondary ability to facilitate switching in to mega evolve right away, then Intimidate is probably the best choice with Rattled being a viable alternative beside Motor Drive.
That said, I do believe if we want CAP's secondary ability to facilitate switching in to mega evolve right away, then Intimidate is probably the best choice with Rattled being a viable alternative beside Motor Drive.
Here's your slate everyone. Sorry for closing this a bit late, just been a long day and I just got back home.
Mold Breaker
No Competitive Ability
Intimidate
Mold Breaker works pretty well on this concept. It allows CAP21 to use the support moves that are available to Rock and Poison-type Pokemon without worrying about Magic Bounce or other annoying immunity Abilities. One benefit of the Rock/Poison typing is its access to Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes and Toxic, and Mold Breaker allows CAP21 to use those moves much more safely.
Intimidate might be a "generic boost", but given our threatlist any help against strong Physical attacks helps. This could be the difference between beating and losing to Azumarill or even something like Mega Charizard X or Talonflame. Since CAP21 needs to take quite a few Physical hits and doesn't have the greatest Physical Defense, Intimidate is a good way to fare better against our threatlist.
I'm going small with this slate. I don't think any other Abilities were well justified as both on the same level of viability as Regenerator and pro-concept. Volt Absorb and Motor Drive were interesting options, but I don't believe that throwing an Electric immunity at our CAP really brings out the best in its typing. Rattled is actually pretty pro-concept - it takes advantage of our inability to have an item Knocked Off as well as our U-Turn resistance- but I don't buy any argument that it would see use over a top-tier Ability like Regenerator.
Mold Breaker
No Competitive Ability
Intimidate
Mold Breaker works pretty well on this concept. It allows CAP21 to use the support moves that are available to Rock and Poison-type Pokemon without worrying about Magic Bounce or other annoying immunity Abilities. One benefit of the Rock/Poison typing is its access to Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes and Toxic, and Mold Breaker allows CAP21 to use those moves much more safely.
Intimidate might be a "generic boost", but given our threatlist any help against strong Physical attacks helps. This could be the difference between beating and losing to Azumarill or even something like Mega Charizard X or Talonflame. Since CAP21 needs to take quite a few Physical hits and doesn't have the greatest Physical Defense, Intimidate is a good way to fare better against our threatlist.
I'm going small with this slate. I don't think any other Abilities were well justified as both on the same level of viability as Regenerator and pro-concept. Volt Absorb and Motor Drive were interesting options, but I don't believe that throwing an Electric immunity at our CAP really brings out the best in its typing. Rattled is actually pretty pro-concept - it takes advantage of our inability to have an item Knocked Off as well as our U-Turn resistance- but I don't buy any argument that it would see use over a top-tier Ability like Regenerator.
So... I have some issues with the slate as presented here. As I mentioned earlier on the project, I see my job as one of making sure that nothing that is well justified and a good option is left out, in addition to making sure that anything that is overly problematic with respect to the concept or project as a while is left out. With regard to this slate, there are two specific abilities that I would like to talk about.
The first of these is Rattled. Looking through this thread, Rattled is presented as a very pro concept ability that lets us take advantage both of our type (via utilizing a Bug resist), and our status as a mega Pokemon (by utilizing our reduced damage from Knock Off). While it is arguable that this ability might be niche, I do not believe that it would be a useless overshadowed ability when compared to Regenerator. The arguments in favor of this ability were strong and numerous, and so I believe that it should see representation on the slate.
My other concern here is with the ability Intimidate. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, most of the arguments focused on this ability centered mainly around how it helped us against Talonflame, a Pokemon that we already beat fairly easily. At the same time, I would argue that the majority of these arguments either undervalued or flat out ignored how incredible the generic benefits of Intimidate are. We are making a Pokemon that will likely be utilizing Head Smash with Magic Guard as a mega Pokemon, and even with high HP, the massive recoil of Head Smash encourages mega evolving as soon as possible, and that's ignoring all the other possible benefits. For any mega Pokemon, but especially one that mega evolves as soon as it can, there is almost no ability in the game that is as generically good for the base form as Intimidate. It effectively allows you to go mega as soon as possible, but while always getting the benefit of your base ability. This is even more especially true of Pokemon that utilize boosting moves or substitutes, which, while we have not talked about yet as that is a later stage of the project, is still certainly not out of the question. But, seriously, look at existing megas: how many would not kill to have Intimidate as their base form's ability? A handful, sure, but generally it is just about as good as you can get for this kind of Pokemon, and I believe it would easily outshine our chosen primary ability. Regardless of whether or not it would, though, given the lack of any consideration given in the thread for some of the major negatives of the ability, it is simply something I cannot support.
In addition to the above, I do think there were some other nice abilities touched on in this thread. I do not necessarily disagree with DLC that they didn't receive enough support to put them on the level of the most heavily supported abilities, but I do believe that a slate as small as this one is is not generally a good thing. However, on that note, I do not believe that this fact in and of itself is reason for any action on the part of the TL.
With all of that said, since my two biggest concerns cannot be addressed with a simple +1 or -1, I am going to have to use the TL option to veto this slate. For those of you who are unaware, the veto is an option that was given to the TL upon the creation of the TLT system, though, as you may have guessed, it has never been utilized until this point. As per the PR thread establishing this rules, "...[the Topic Leader] can veto the slate entirely; in that case, the CAP moderators will make a new slate that adequately addresses the consensus of the community." The CAP moderation team has been informed of the situation, and discussion of how to proceed is already underway. Note that despite the concerns I outlined above, this does not necessarily mean that any given ability will or will not make the slate. Rather, it will be up to the moderation team to decide what slate best aligns with the community consensus from intelligently supported posts, within the bounds of the project. A representative of the moderation team will post here with the slate when a consensus is reached.
The first of these is Rattled. Looking through this thread, Rattled is presented as a very pro concept ability that lets us take advantage both of our type (via utilizing a Bug resist), and our status as a mega Pokemon (by utilizing our reduced damage from Knock Off). While it is arguable that this ability might be niche, I do not believe that it would be a useless overshadowed ability when compared to Regenerator. The arguments in favor of this ability were strong and numerous, and so I believe that it should see representation on the slate.
My other concern here is with the ability Intimidate. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, most of the arguments focused on this ability centered mainly around how it helped us against Talonflame, a Pokemon that we already beat fairly easily. At the same time, I would argue that the majority of these arguments either undervalued or flat out ignored how incredible the generic benefits of Intimidate are. We are making a Pokemon that will likely be utilizing Head Smash with Magic Guard as a mega Pokemon, and even with high HP, the massive recoil of Head Smash encourages mega evolving as soon as possible, and that's ignoring all the other possible benefits. For any mega Pokemon, but especially one that mega evolves as soon as it can, there is almost no ability in the game that is as generically good for the base form as Intimidate. It effectively allows you to go mega as soon as possible, but while always getting the benefit of your base ability. This is even more especially true of Pokemon that utilize boosting moves or substitutes, which, while we have not talked about yet as that is a later stage of the project, is still certainly not out of the question. But, seriously, look at existing megas: how many would not kill to have Intimidate as their base form's ability? A handful, sure, but generally it is just about as good as you can get for this kind of Pokemon, and I believe it would easily outshine our chosen primary ability. Regardless of whether or not it would, though, given the lack of any consideration given in the thread for some of the major negatives of the ability, it is simply something I cannot support.
In addition to the above, I do think there were some other nice abilities touched on in this thread. I do not necessarily disagree with DLC that they didn't receive enough support to put them on the level of the most heavily supported abilities, but I do believe that a slate as small as this one is is not generally a good thing. However, on that note, I do not believe that this fact in and of itself is reason for any action on the part of the TL.
With all of that said, since my two biggest concerns cannot be addressed with a simple +1 or -1, I am going to have to use the TL option to veto this slate. For those of you who are unaware, the veto is an option that was given to the TL upon the creation of the TLT system, though, as you may have guessed, it has never been utilized until this point. As per the PR thread establishing this rules, "...[the Topic Leader] can veto the slate entirely; in that case, the CAP moderators will make a new slate that adequately addresses the consensus of the community." The CAP moderation team has been informed of the situation, and discussion of how to proceed is already underway. Note that despite the concerns I outlined above, this does not necessarily mean that any given ability will or will not make the slate. Rather, it will be up to the moderation team to decide what slate best aligns with the community consensus from intelligently supported posts, within the bounds of the project. A representative of the moderation team will post here with the slate when a consensus is reached.
Sorry for the delay in concluding this thread, but this is a somewhat big "first" for CAP, from a policy perspective. Not that DLC did anything wrong in making the slate as ability leader, nor anything wrong with what Jas did in vetoing the slate entirely. This is just one of those rare cases where we've hit a wrinkle in slatemaking, and it is bringing into play a policy failsafe that we've never exercised before. So, the mods want to make sure we do the right thing here, more because we will be setting a precedent, and less because we think CAP armageddon will occur over this secondary ability decision.
With that said, let me clarify the policy mandate for the mods at this juncture. Our sole job now is to make a slate that represents the so-called "intelligent community consensus" (which for brevity's sake, we'll call the "ICC" for the rest of this post).
The ICC is the collective opinion of all the intelligent posters in this thread. As such, the definition of "intelligent" is a gray area that can be hard to pin down. Acting as mods, we try to be mature and understand the difference between saying someone is "unintelligent" versus "I disagree with that person". CAP gets a lot of legit "unintelligent" people posting -- but that doesn't mean anyone that isn't a tour winner, that their opinions should be disregarded as "unintelligent".
Some general criteria for "intelligence" is: Does the person use decent logic (not flavor)?, Do they demonstrate a basic understanding of the mechanics of pokemon battling and the CAP project? That sort of thing. So, if someone knows about battling, knows about CAP, and posts their reasons for supporting something -- then their opinion should "count" in terms of judging the ICC. But I put "count" in quotes, because it ISN'T A VOTE. Extremely intelligent, extremely well-argued posts will "count more" than others, when it comes to determining the ICC. By the same token, sometimes otherwise intelligent people do not really link their arguments to the question at hand -- and that will discount their impact on the ICC.
So we reviewed the thread carefully to determine all the options that were presented intelligently. Keep in mind, there is a difference between "intelligently presented options" and "good options". You can have some options that are "intelligent" but not "good". And "not good" is not the same as "bad" or "harmful" for the project, just "not good" as in "not better than other options". And it is NOT up to the mods to choose which option is "better than other options" -- that is why we hold a COMMUNITY VOTE. We slate all intelligent options, and then the community decides which is the "best" option.
While there was a lot of debate amongst the mods as to which abilities were "best", we agreed the following abilities were all viable and they represent the intelligent community consensus:
Mold Breaker
Rattled
Intimidate
Oblivious
No Competitive Ability
We felt all these abilities were presented with logical support by multiple posters, and the arguments were reasonably linked to our concept. There were a few abilities that were mentioned that did not get slated. In all cases not slated, it was due to lack of multiple supporters or lack of arguments directly linking the proposed ability to the actual concept. A few abilities were posted with reasoning of "It helps us beat X" and "X" was not a defined threat for us, or not a threat at all. So even though reasoning was given, these abilities could not objectively be considered part of the ICC.
The Secondary Ability poll will be posted tomorrow morning US time, and we look forward to getting CAP 21 back on track!
With that said, let me clarify the policy mandate for the mods at this juncture. Our sole job now is to make a slate that represents the so-called "intelligent community consensus" (which for brevity's sake, we'll call the "ICC" for the rest of this post).
The ICC is the collective opinion of all the intelligent posters in this thread. As such, the definition of "intelligent" is a gray area that can be hard to pin down. Acting as mods, we try to be mature and understand the difference between saying someone is "unintelligent" versus "I disagree with that person". CAP gets a lot of legit "unintelligent" people posting -- but that doesn't mean anyone that isn't a tour winner, that their opinions should be disregarded as "unintelligent".
Some general criteria for "intelligence" is: Does the person use decent logic (not flavor)?, Do they demonstrate a basic understanding of the mechanics of pokemon battling and the CAP project? That sort of thing. So, if someone knows about battling, knows about CAP, and posts their reasons for supporting something -- then their opinion should "count" in terms of judging the ICC. But I put "count" in quotes, because it ISN'T A VOTE. Extremely intelligent, extremely well-argued posts will "count more" than others, when it comes to determining the ICC. By the same token, sometimes otherwise intelligent people do not really link their arguments to the question at hand -- and that will discount their impact on the ICC.
So we reviewed the thread carefully to determine all the options that were presented intelligently. Keep in mind, there is a difference between "intelligently presented options" and "good options". You can have some options that are "intelligent" but not "good". And "not good" is not the same as "bad" or "harmful" for the project, just "not good" as in "not better than other options". And it is NOT up to the mods to choose which option is "better than other options" -- that is why we hold a COMMUNITY VOTE. We slate all intelligent options, and then the community decides which is the "best" option.
While there was a lot of debate amongst the mods as to which abilities were "best", we agreed the following abilities were all viable and they represent the intelligent community consensus:
Mold Breaker
Rattled
Intimidate
Oblivious
No Competitive Ability
We felt all these abilities were presented with logical support by multiple posters, and the arguments were reasonably linked to our concept. There were a few abilities that were mentioned that did not get slated. In all cases not slated, it was due to lack of multiple supporters or lack of arguments directly linking the proposed ability to the actual concept. A few abilities were posted with reasoning of "It helps us beat X" and "X" was not a defined threat for us, or not a threat at all. So even though reasoning was given, these abilities could not objectively be considered part of the ICC.
The Secondary Ability poll will be posted tomorrow morning US time, and we look forward to getting CAP 21 back on track!
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