CAP 6 CAP 6 - Part 5 - Ability Discussion

There are a lot of abilities that could suit this pokemon well. The water aspect opens alot of defensive abilities such as hydration, water veil, water absorb, rain dish, swift swim, and even marvel scale. Fighting opens iron fist, huge power, no guard, technician, Intimidate, and Vital Spirit.


As we found out, it is leaned defensive slightly. Huge Power might be an interesting go here supplying a possible OU Azumarill. No guard as well as Swift Swim provide some usful power bonus', since a majority of the pokemon are defensive.

I'd like to see Hydration and Marvel Scale (if we can justify it) used, providing some strong defensive capabilities.

haterguy said:

The art (final art) will actually decide what the ability will be.

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Um, how so? Art doesn't affect ability in most cases for pokemon, and I fail to see the point you are trying to present. We can give a pokemon an ability with a different name for flavor but Art doesn't affect the effect in anyway.

A Psych Up ability Poké would still be at risk itself, though. By the sounds of things, this guy isn't going to have a base Speed stat over 90; which means that lots of important stat-uppers will still outrun it (Stratagem, Syclant, Mence, Luke, Porygon-Z, Ape, etc.) so it'll need to survive the switch-in and take another hit before it's copied stats will help it at all. If Salamence already has a couple of Dances, that's not all that likely to happen. It would only really shine as a counter to slower stat-boosters, like Revv, Tyranitar, Blissey, Scizor, etc.
This is why it would make a nice secondary to Unaware. Unaware safely takes out any stat-booster (regardless of Speed) while Psych Up doesn't work as well on faster ones (not counting things that it forces out, like Weavile) but works very well on slower ones by keeping their boosts.

Oh, and to the above poster ^ I agree with your point, but since when is Ekans cute??

honestly i think that this is being looked at the wrong way. the ability should help decide the sprite, not the other way around.

and as for things being cute;i could think a tiger is adorable, but that doesn't mean that i would go up and pet it b/c i know that it will more that likely MAUL ME TO DEATH

Another Idea for an ability:

How about an ability much like Download, except it increases your Defense/Special Defense based on your opponent's attack/special attack? It would help against some of the sweepers (basically giving you a free +1 to defenses) and in a way, it would be much like Unaware.

Only problem with it is that it might be overpowered if the base stats of CAP 6 is too high, or that it makes CAP 6 into a stall-monster.

A defensive Download sounds cool. Only thing is, it would be really easy to use, though. You could switch it into anything and wall it, whereas with you need to switch Porygon-Z into something with lower Special Defense to get the boost.
I think it would be pretty much broken. Either that, or we'd suddenly start seeing Infernape and mixed Lucario all over the place (even more than now, I mean.)

EDIT: Nevermind, I just remembered CAP6 is Water/Fighting. Infernape is NOT going to be switching into it. Mixed Salamence and such will be.

Oi. Stick to discussing Abilities.

I agree that Technician would help alot in providing the necessary power to overcome Speed stat uppers like DDMence with boosted priority moves.

However, I doubt Technician will receive enough support simply because we gave it to CAP5. I Hope that people won't think that way but I fear they will.

Unaware/Technician would make a nice pair as we'd have a defensive Ability and an Offensive one, having very different effects on the movesets of CAP6.

Deck Knight said:

Fidgit. It isn't as if Earth Power isn't already stomped upon by most of the Top 10.

And also Gengar if this ends up being a big enough threat, but Gengar isn't in the Top 10 of the server.

Interestingly enough this could bring back the likes of Sludge Bomb Venusaur, or put Poison Jab on SD Victreebel. And Sludge Bomb Tentacruel could start coming back, based solely on the fact it will resist all of CAP6's important moves.

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This is what i was talking about. It would change the metagame and allow not top OU pokemon to come in and shine. Not many OU ever uses POISON attacks, and it could open up alot of new options.

To quote myself:

Petope said:

An ablility similar to dry skin would probobly be great. Because it gives it an immunity but balances up with an extra weakness. I could se this pokemon get an ablility that makes it immune to Dark attacks (thinking mostly of those fishes living deep down under the water without any sunlight at all) and gives it a Poison weakness, it could be called "Pristine Darkness". The poison weakness would probobly not be so big, because of the rarity of Poison attacks (mostly due to all steel types in OU). Of the top 50 of the most used pkmn on the CAP server during november only three pokemon is of poison type: Fidgit, Gengar and Tentacruel, and I haven't seen any of them use Sludge bomb alot. I could see it get two immunities and become 4x weak to Poison as it would make it more counterable (probobly with alot more not OU pokes) and a good decentralizer of the current metagame.

If this pokemon should "decentralize" the metagame, it needs to counter (or "check" or what you else call it) the top10 so good that you'll need something else to get around it. But it still needs to be weak to alot of other pokes (not of the top 10), just so it doesn't just becomes 1 of the new top10. That is the goal of CAP6 as I see it.

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But the ability doesn't need to be immunt to DARK (but I still think it should be weak to POISON). It could be immune to something more usefull as Flying or Electric if you think thats better. It was mostly bacause nothing resist Dark (nothing resist Flying of Grass moves either) and I came up with the name of "Pristine Darkness" that I thought it could help. Because immunities is so commen in the top of OU. Top10 has 7/10 with type immunities, and Strata has levitate and Syclant has Mountineer that is and switch in immunity, so you could say that 9/10 of the CAP OU top has free switch in possibilities.

dark is resisted by dark fighting and steal, that was one of my original problems with it, you want to make it immune to something it already resists instead of something more useful.

Deck Knight said:

Fidgit. It isn't as if Earth Power isn't already stomped upon by most of the Top 10.

And also Gengar if this ends up being a big enough threat, but Gengar isn't in the Top 10 of the server.

Interestingly enough this could bring back the likes of Sludge Bomb Venusaur, or put Poison Jab on SD Victreebel. And Sludge Bomb Tentacruel could start coming back, based solely on the fact it will resist all of CAP6's important moves.

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Fidgit almost never runs Sludge Bomb. It typically only has room for one STAB attack and Ground is far better seeing's how Poison has 1 super effective and is useless against the ever common Steels.

It would be great if we could encourage the use of poison types, most of whom are confined to the lower tiers or who fare badly against CAPs (Gengar loses to Rev after 1BU) especially Grass/Poison which is prolific in BL/UU.

The only problem I have with Pristine Darkness or another Dry Skin-esque Ability is that it is so contrived and arbitrary. There needs to be a strong reason for it, as with Volt Absorb/Shockproof being suggested to fulfill the concept of CAP6.

Please guys, no talk of movepool for now.

ferron said:

dark is resisted by dark fighting and steal, that was one of my original problems with it, you want to make it immune to something it already resists instead of something more useful.

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I just said that it don't need to be Dark immune.

Petope said:

But the ability doesn't need to be immunt to DARK (but I still think it should be weak to POISON). It could be immune to something more usefull as Flying or Electric if you think thats better. It was mostly bacause nothing resist Dark (nothing resist Flying of Grass moves either) and I came up with the name of "Pristine Darkness" that I thought it could help. Because immunities is so commen in the top of OU. Top10 has 7/10 with type immunities, and Strata has levitate and Syclant has Mountineer that is and switch in immunity, so you could say that 9/10 of the CAP OU top has free switch in possibilities.

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I could change the immune to Electric, because then watermon whould lose a weakness and that whould help alot with Zapdos and with Blisseys Twave. I could call it "Distilled water", because (if I remember correctly) distilled can't lead any electric (if you dont understand it could be because of my bad english, I dont really know a good word for it).

"Distilled Water" - A Dry skinnish Abillity
An abillity that makes the pokemon immune to Electric attacks, but gives it a weakness to Poison type attacks.

To make POISON attacks more appealing it could give 4x weakness to Poison, but it gives 1 immunity and 1 extra resistence, for an example: Immune to electric and resisdence to fire (could be any type, like flying, Psychic or fighting), and 4x weak to Poison.

It whold make it easier to counter stuff like, Zapdos and cover the fire weakness of this metagame. And it would give Poison its first 4x weakness.

I am completely against any ability that partially or fully takes away or adds weaknesses to the Pokemon. You voted for Water/Fighting? Deal with the consequences. It makes no sense to remove one of it's weaknesses like we did with Syclant, and even then that was retarded. The only Pokemon that do anything similar are Gengar, Weezing, Heatran, and Lanturn. Heatran and Lanturn would be neutral to Fire and Electric respectively, and Gengar and Weezing float with the art. There is nothing to suggest that a Water/Fighting Pokemon can absorb or neutralize Electric attacks, and it is completely arbitrary to remove or lessen such a weakness just because "We want this to deal with EVERY one of the top 5, including Zapdos." If you had wanted it that bad, you should have made a Ground/Steel Pokemon. In conclusion, any made up or existing ability that removes or lessens such a weakness is completely unneccesary, because the concept says we only need to check a majority of the top 5, not all of the top 5. Let Zapdos go and we'll have more freedom to make a better Pokemon.

Tennis has said it perfectly: Damage mitigation/absorption abilities will be overpowered, unnecessary, and will not make sense on this one. I totally agree with him.

tennisace said:

I am completely against any ability that partially or fully takes away or adds weaknesses to the Pokemon. You voted for Water/Fighting? Deal with the consequences. It makes no sense to remove one of it's weaknesses like we did with Syclant, and even then that was retarded. The only Pokemon that do anything similar are Gengar, Weezing, Heatran, and Lanturn. Heatran and Lanturn would be neutral to Fire and Electric respectively, and Gengar and Weezing float with the art. There is nothing to suggest that a Water/Fighting Pokemon can absorb or neutralize Electric attacks, and it is completely arbitrary to remove or lessen such a weakness just because "We want this to deal with EVERY one of the top 5, including Zapdos." If you had wanted it that bad, you should have made a Ground/Steel Pokemon. In conclusion, any made up or existing ability that removes or lessens such a weakness is completely unneccesary, because the concept says we only need to check a majority of the top 5, not all of the top 5. Let Zapdos go and we'll have more freedom to make a better Pokemon.

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Sorry but me personally never really wanted the Water/Fighting type, so what I am trying to do is "dealing with the consequenses. If it could help to decentralize the game more I think we have the full rights to do it. THIS is CAP! We should do what we want to do. And now the goal is to decentralize the metagame and I think that an ability that gives immunities is necessary. As I see this pokemon it will need to switch in and out alot and thats why immunities are so important for it, so it doesn't runs about of hp because of switching in. Just look at the top 50, only 12 of them are without any immunities. I don't say it has to be Electric immune (just to wall Zapdos), but I can find it usefull. It could be fire immune if you feel thats better, to reduce the fire weakness of the current OU. Or it could be ground, ice or fighting immune if that works better (as all of those is all pretty common attacktypes. And so what if its unuseually for pokemon to do get abillities like that (it has been done as you say yourself, so I can't see the probblem) we are CAP and should make our decisions from a competitive point of view. Not flavour! Wasn't that the whole closing the "EVO projekt" all about?
(BTW: Gengar has never floated in his art. In ALL his sprites he is standing on the ground.)
I dont want to do a Ground/Steel beacuse it whould be pwed by many pokemons with fire moves or ground moves (that is VERY common), I don't have a big desperate need to wall Zapdos. Its just that I could see it get usefull, since without it as I see it right now Zapdos could become its biggest counter. I onlyl want this pokemon to get immunities as I see it as its best option to switch in alot without taking serious dammage.
The extra weakness is to compensate for the immunity and think thats a fair trade. Right now Watermons weaknesses is Electric, Grass, Flying and Psychic. Electric is the most common attack type of them at least in OU, probobly the most widespread also (Boltbeamers?). If it loses the electric weakness and gets a not so very common weakness (i.e. Poison) it opens up more for other pokemons that gets STAB on watermons weaknesses thats not part of the top 10.
It should be counterable, but still it need to be good enought to decentralize the metagame. But that could be done just by taking out one big OU threat. Like the fire weakness. If watermon whould be immune to fire it whould be the only pokemon that is immune to fire (except Flash Fire pkmns but those are all of Fire type themself).

To summerize the whole. I think this pokemon need an immunity but it still needs to be counterable (preferably by not top OU) to be able to decentralize the game. And thats why I think a Dry skinish ability whould be great for this pokemon.

jagged_angel said:

Oi. Stick to discussing Abilities.

I agree that Technician would help alot in providing the necessary power to overcome Speed stat uppers like DDMence with boosted priority moves.

However, I doubt Technician will receive enough support simply because we gave it to CAP5. I Hope that people won't think that way but I fear they will.

Unaware/Technician would make a nice pair as we'd have a defensive Ability and an Offensive one, having very different effects on the movesets of CAP6.

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Completely agree, Unaware is brilliant defensively as it allows our pokemon to stop common stat-uppers. Technician actually seems to make the most sense out of all the other abilities, as it gives the ability to counter top threats by outspeeding and possibly OHKOing them

petope, i am not gonna say that giving CaP6 an immunity will be a bad thing but i have yet to hear a good argument for its inclusion or even a well formed recommendation for what it should be immune to. if someone recommended one with a good argument and statistics of use (in order to prove effectiveness, but not broken-ness) then i would back it, but no one has done it yet.

as for the poison weakness, it would make tentacruel an instant counter to this poke even before release. its already able to shrug off the STABs, and i doubt that we will be voting in a speedy enough stat set. the difference between tenta and zapados in this regard is that CaP6 has a weakness to both zapados' STABs (though its flying STAB is rarely used) but still in just about guarrenteed moves that will be super-effective on it. CaP6 will be reliant on earthquake in every set or just die to tenta.

also, don't quote numbers that can be used against you. if 12 of the top 50 don't have an immunity, then obviously it doesn't need an immunity to be good.

as for zapados being the main threat, have you not been in the stat discussion? most of the people have been designing their stats as to be able to take at least a single hit from the common defensive zapados. look through all the posts, many of us have been working on this. the ability to guarrentee that even the rare offensive zapados will no get a OHKO is something that is being dealt with.

sorry if this post was a bit jumpy, but there were many different topics in your post to address

Petope said:

Sorry but me personally never really wanted the Water/Fighting type,

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"Too Bad". The community wanted it, and you're going to have to deal like everyone else.

so what I am trying to do is "dealing with the consequenses. If it could help to decentralize the game more I think we have the full rights to do it. THIS is CAP! We should do what we want to do. And now the goal is to decentralize the metagame and I think that an ability that gives immunities is necessary.

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Wrong. You aren't dealing with the consequences, you're dodging the consequences. I think it's quite cowardly to just brush something like that under the rug, when we know full well that Zapdos commonly carries HP Grass anyway. So unless the ability is "Zapdos dies upon switching in", good luck. It's best bet would be some sort of Ice attack based on X-Act's movepool guide but good luck. Unstab will do jack shit, and it's unnecessary thanks to Stratagem being the best check to Zapdos this side of Blissey.

As for "this is CAP, we do whatever we want with our metagame", I want to get rid of that mentality completely. It's completely contradictory to our mission statement, which clearly says: "...although it is not the main focus of the construction process, the CAP project strives to create holistic Pokémon concepts that make sense within the spirit and example of the actual Pokémon game." How does it make sense to give a Water-type an immunity to Electric, when it's secondary type isn't Electric? It doesn't. We can do anything, within reason, and with good competitive reasoning backing us up. "Because we want this to deal with Zapdos in addition to most of the rest of the top 10" isn't a good reason. The concept clearly states "most of the top 5", not all. Why is it bad if this loses to Zapdos? Why must we need to dilute the quality of this Pokemon by taking up an ability slot just to be able to switch into Zapdos, who carries a move that is STAB but is a different type anyway? It doesn't make sense. That isn't decentralizing, that's clearly centralizing.

As I see this pokemon it will need to switch in and out alot and thats why immunities are so important for it, so it doesn't runs about of hp because of switching in.

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If you wanted immunities you should have voted a Ghost/Normal or Ghost/Steel. Resistances are more important in this metagame anyway, because many teams carry Fidgit, Vaporeon, or Blissey for healing.

Just look at the top 50, only 12 of them are without any immunities.

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So? This metagame is centralized to Flying-types and Steel-types, how does that prove anything?

I don't say it has to be Electric immune (just to wall Zapdos), but I can find it usefull.

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It's useful but completely illogical, because it's quite clear that the only reason you would make it Electric-immune is to "wall" Zapdos, which is clearly centralizing this Pokemon.

It could be fire immune if you feel thats better, to reduce the fire weakness of the current OU. Or it could be ground, ice or fighting immune if that works better (as all of those is all pretty common attacktypes. And so what if its unuseually for pokemon to do get abillities like that (it has been done as you say yourself, so I can't see the probblem) we are CAP and should make our decisions from a competitive point of view. Not flavour! Wasn't that the whole closing the "EVO projekt" all about?

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Don't bring EVO into this, there was a whole underlying set of factors besides flavor.

As for your point, "who cares" if the metagame is weak to "insert type here". That's why you have 6 Pokemon on a team, to support each other and cover each other's weaknesses. Why can't we be content to just use, say Tyranitar or Stratagem to get rid of Zapdos? It's not like they're not OU, hell they're number four and number 1 respectively.

As for the it's been done point, that's nice. There are exceptions to everything, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. It's completely arbitrary to give this an immunity to anything, and it won't help it much when it continually loses to CM Stratagem and BU Revenankh because we used it's ability to beat Zapdos.

The decision to make CAP 6 immune to Electric isn't competitive in any way, it's arbitrary and unnecessary.

... I don't have a big desperate need to wall Zapdos. Its just that I could see it get usefull, since without it as I see it right now Zapdos could become its biggest counter.

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You still haven't said what's wrong with Zapdos countering this, because I don't see anything wrong.

I onlyl want this pokemon to get immunities as I see it as its best option to switch in alot without taking serious dammage.

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Or you could, y'know, predict and not switch into Zapdos, and instead, switch into things like Stratagem, Blissey, or Tyranitar that you can actually do damage to.

The extra weakness is to compensate for the immunity and think thats a fair trade. Right now Watermons weaknesses is Electric, Grass, Flying and Psychic. Electric is the most common attack type of them at least in OU, probobly the most widespread also (Boltbeamers?). If it loses the electric weakness and gets a not so very common weakness (i.e. Poison) it opens up more for other pokemons that gets STAB on watermons weaknesses thats not part of the top 10.

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Since when does two wrongs make a right? The fact is, you're still giving this an Electric immunity, which is quite stupid as I've said many times before. Grass, Flying, and Psychic are also about as common as Electric by the way, because of the state of the metagame right now. So what exactly are you solving again?

It should be counterable, but still it need to be good enought to decentralize the metagame. But that could be done just by taking out one big OU threat. Like the fire weakness. If watermon whould be immune to fire it whould be the only pokemon that is immune to fire (except Flash Fire pkmns but those are all of Fire type themself).

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It doesn't just take out one big OU threat right now, it takes out about 4-5 without the immunity. Isn't that enough?

To summerize the whole. I think this pokemon need an immunity but it still needs to be counterable (preferably by not top OU) to be able to decentralize the game. And thats why I think a Dry skinish ability whould be great for this pokemon.

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To summarize, it already would be counterable if you just stopped and thought about it: you're slightly diminishing it's best counter, not even taking it away based on it's common movesets. What exactly is the point of wasting an ability on something so arbitrary and almost cowardly that goes against our mission and its own concept, especially when it will decrease the quality of the Pokemon as a whole? The prosecution rests.

Birdy said:

Another Idea for an ability:

How about an ability much like Download, except it increases your Defense/Special Defense based on your opponent's attack/special attack? It would help against some of the sweepers (basically giving you a free +1 to defenses) and in a way, it would be much like Unaware.

Only problem with it is that it might be overpowered if the base stats of CAP 6 is too high, or that it makes CAP 6 into a stall-monster.

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I personally like this idea very much.

Flosscar said:

Completely agree, Unaware is brilliant defensively as it allows our pokemon to stop common stat-uppers. Technician actually seems to make the most sense out of all the other abilities, as it gives the ability to counter top threats by outspeeding and possibly OHKOing them

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Only problem with Unaware is that it's too advantageous to the person using CAP 6. Here's an example:

You have a Froslass out on the field, and you spike x3 their field, while the opponent's Tyranitar dragon dances three times. As soon as you're finished, you bring out CAP 6, and can pose an immediate threat to the DD Tyranitar (due to unaware not doing much damage and your fighting STAB)

Based on the stats distribution on CAP 6, unaware will very likely make CAP 6 overpowered (he's not like bibarel, who has an excuse with unaware due to his low base stats)

As for the Dry Skin argument, one can simply modify the skill so it doesn't make CAP 6 immune to a type, but only resist or neutralize it. Something more on the line of Solid Rock or Conversion 2.

tennis, i approve. i would'v said it a bit nicer, but i approve.

Birdy said:

Only problem with Unaware is that it's too advantageous to the person using CAP 6. Here's an example:

You have a Froslass out on the field, and you spike x3 their field, while the opponent's Tyranitar dragon dances three times. As soon as you're finished, you bring out CAP 6, and can pose an immediate threat to the DD Tyranitar (due to unaware not doing much damage and your fighting STAB)

Based on the stats distribution on CAP 6, unaware will very likely make CAP 6 overpowered (he's not like bibarel, who has an excuse with unaware due to his low base stats)

As for the Dry Skin argument, one can simply modify the skill so it doesn't make CAP 6 immune to a type, but only resist or neutralize it. Something more on the line of Solid Rock or Conversion 2.

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The point of the decentralizer is to do things like stop DDtar. If your opponent honestly Dragon Dances three times while letting froslass live then they deserve to get stopped because that was a dumb play. Unaware will also let it survive a calm minded strategem, Tail Glow Syclant, SDScizor, etc. Unaware isn't overpowering this pokemon, it's giving it a shot at doing it's job by putting the two pokemon on an even footing.

As for the stats overpowering it, I already know. I'm working on keeping it counterable in that thread. Even if it stands, the majority of pokemon outside the top 10 don't use stat-up moves. Many of them, such as metagross and togekiss, can easily beat this thing to a pulp if it has the current popular spreads

Birdy said:

Only problem with Unaware is that it's too advantageous to the person using CAP 6. Here's an example:

You have a Froslass out on the field, and you spike x3 their field, while the opponent's Tyranitar dragon dances three times. As soon as you're finished, you bring out CAP 6, and can pose an immediate threat to the DD Tyranitar (due to unaware not doing much damage and your fighting STAB)

Based on the stats distribution on CAP 6, unaware will very likely make CAP 6 overpowered (he's not like bibarel, who has an excuse with unaware due to his low base stats)

As for the Dry Skin argument, one can simply modify the skill so it doesn't make CAP 6 immune to a type, but only resist or neutralize it. Something more on the line of Solid Rock or Conversion 2.

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That would be their fault for stat upping on Froslass, instead of just getting rid of it with Stone Edge after the first layer of spikes. Not to mention that would never happen, since who would DD against a Froslass three times with a T-tar? I haven't done the calcs, but I feel pretty confident that Froslass could KO a Ttar with four attacks (it would outspeed and go first the next turn), making such a decision incredibly risky and not worth it, especially since even if it doesn't attack him and lets him stat-up, it will be at the cost of getting three-layers of spikes on his side of the field. So, I would hardly call the ability broken for such a reason, since such a scenario should never happen if both players are skilled.

Keep in mind that Unaware does not ignore any boosts to Speed.

I feel that, knowledge that CAP6 exists is probably enough for you to reason, "I should not get cocky with my Tyranitar while I know CAP6 could still be out there." It's not a good idea to waste time while your opponent is Spiking up, not when what is quite likely going to be a very common Pokemon can put all of it to naught. It's not a good idea to waste time while your opponent is Spiking up, period. :P