@Elegy: Fair enough, just wanted to throw that out there while all this ability discussion was going on....
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CAP 9 CAP 9 - Concept Assessment
- Thread starter Plus
- Start date
- Status
I think Multitype would be an excellent choice of ability. It would allow versatility without countering everything at once. The flexibility would allow CAP9 to scare off secondary attacks, even if the current form is not immune to the attacks. The attacks are not rendered useless, but using them becomes riskier (this is if typing is not announced on entrance, as suggested).
In response to the cons:
Cons
Difficulty building a stable movepool
Not necessarily; as mentioned, we could build off the original typing.
No possibilty for a dual typing
Monotyping is not a prerequisite for this ability, as we only have one example of how it's used.
Difficulty building stats that work with the possibilities, Example, High special attack necessary for Fire version, but Ground version needs high attack
Point taken, but then again, CAP9 may not necessarily be a sweeper, and not all forms are expected to be as effective.
Trick Blocking can be achieving through other abilities
But poof goes versatility when using this ability. (Aside from other features such as typing or moveset.)
Decision if the Pokemons sprite will change with type, if no, could be broken if you have to guess the typing, if yes, more work for spriters
I doubt there will be a sprite change; if at all, the typing should be announced upon entrance or in parentheses, EX: CAP9(fire)
Will need more team support than the concept says, if its designed to take paralysis, it could leave a hole open for Toxic users, which requires a steel/posion type, but if it was Fire-Steel it covers both.
Point taken, but again, we don't need to resist everything at once. We just need the ability to discourage secondary attacks.
In response to the cons:
Cons
Difficulty building a stable movepool
Not necessarily; as mentioned, we could build off the original typing.
No possibilty for a dual typing
Monotyping is not a prerequisite for this ability, as we only have one example of how it's used.
Difficulty building stats that work with the possibilities, Example, High special attack necessary for Fire version, but Ground version needs high attack
Point taken, but then again, CAP9 may not necessarily be a sweeper, and not all forms are expected to be as effective.
Trick Blocking can be achieving through other abilities
But poof goes versatility when using this ability. (Aside from other features such as typing or moveset.)
Decision if the Pokemons sprite will change with type, if no, could be broken if you have to guess the typing, if yes, more work for spriters
I doubt there will be a sprite change; if at all, the typing should be announced upon entrance or in parentheses, EX: CAP9(fire)
Will need more team support than the concept says, if its designed to take paralysis, it could leave a hole open for Toxic users, which requires a steel/posion type, but if it was Fire-Steel it covers both.
Point taken, but again, we don't need to resist everything at once. We just need the ability to discourage secondary attacks.
Multitype automatically makes some impossible to counter fully, provided it has a semi-decent offensive movepool.
Say you go with a Fire-Plate and rocks are up. Does the opponent think it's Bug? Ice? Flying? Fire? Who can switch into all those types except Heatran.
You can use this to cause a lot of mind games since your opponent won't know what to attack with.
I suppose Frisk stops this (it would find it right?) but to me, Multitype is too big a boost and the limitations of movepool or stats to counter this wouldn't be worth it.
Sorry if this is overly specific, I felt the need to address Multitype specifically.
Say you go with a Fire-Plate and rocks are up. Does the opponent think it's Bug? Ice? Flying? Fire? Who can switch into all those types except Heatran.
You can use this to cause a lot of mind games since your opponent won't know what to attack with.
I suppose Frisk stops this (it would find it right?) but to me, Multitype is too big a boost and the limitations of movepool or stats to counter this wouldn't be worth it.
Sorry if this is overly specific, I felt the need to address Multitype specifically.
Once again this can be fixed by having on entry of Cap9 some text saying, "Spiffy is the Grass-, Electric-, Fighting-, whatever-type!"
The purpose of this concept is not supposed to be immune to as much secondary effects as possible. It's only supposed to cover a variety. With the examples you're implying, you're trying to find out the best combination of typing/ability that will cover a ton of stuff.
Multitype is a reasonable ability, mainly because it provides a variety of immunities to secondary effects. For example, Flying plate gives it immunity to grounded hazards and Trick, but is still effected by status, leech seed, etc. Grass plate gives it immunity to Leech Seed and Trick, but is still vulnerable to various other effects.
Multitype can basically provide immunity to a bunch of things, but it's impossible for it to do so at once, only a variety. It depends on what your team wants to be immune to, really.
Could you guys possibly wait till later to go this much in-depth into one ability? It's a concept we're focusing on here. You'll get your opportunity to discuss abilities/typing into more depth later; for now, I just want it to stop, so we can focus more on the concept at hand.
I appreciate all the people who formed lists of possibilities, but that really isn't the main thing to discuss here. We're here to discuss the basics of the concept.
Oh, and stop polljumping. There have been a ton of cases already. Please remember to keep it could, not should.
I appreciate all the people who formed lists of possibilities, but that really isn't the main thing to discuss here. We're here to discuss the basics of the concept.
Oh, and stop polljumping. There have been a ton of cases already. Please remember to keep it could, not should.
This is more dissertation-y than point-by-point.
In my mind the biggest things that keep secondary effects up and active are the hazards themselves and Trick. However, I don't really think we need to play an "immunities" game here so much as we need to punish to the best extent possible these strategies, either by forcing a sacrifice or making it difficult for the most common protection strategies to be employed.
Quite frankly it is impossible to be immune to all secondary effects. "Magic Guard lol" still doesn't stop the Toxic Counter or the speed drop from paralysis, you can still be tricked or taunted, and you still have half attack while burned. If you find a way to Swap or remove the ability (hi Worry Seed Tutor) then all of that protection goes away, aside from noted Hazards.
What I think we should focus on is punishing the users of secondary effects. I have an idea in my mind but there are a few sticking points that I'm not comfortable with. In any case, I think the best place to start is who uses secondary effects. Trick is almost entirely the purview of Psychics and Ghosts, Leech Seed is Grass only, and Burn tends to reside in both Fire and Ghost, though Fire more as an incident of Lava Plume and Fire STAB.
Right now my thought process has a Hariyama base. Hariyama has decent bulk on any given side when properly EVd, benefits from status-based moves, and has enough Attack to benefit greatly from a tricked Band or Scarf. It even has support moves like Knock Off and Whirlwind. It also resists Stealth Rock. I think with a few important tweaks this can fulfill the concept handily, notably in moves Rapid Spin and Pursuit, and Dark typing to scare off Ghosts and Psychics to boot. I know that's a slight poll jump, but typing is coming up and I've reasoned with this all day. I still need to put the rest of the theory to paper with a solid direction, but I've been trending more and more towards a pokemon with enough speed to gain from Trick, enough attack and a good type to punish its users, and an ability that enhances its performance when statused.
All of those things in combination to me form the best basis for this project. So I will argue for each facet as we move along.
Ugh, my last post got deleted while I was editing it to fix it (Plus posted while I was typing...). =(
Anyway, I must say that since there is no way we can prevent everything, we shouldn't focus on stopping everything, but instead use a combination of preventive and punishing methods. For example you could give this pokemon stuff like Pursuit, Encore, or Liquid Ooze to punish secondary users, and stuff like Tinted Lens, Taunt, and Rapid Spin to prevent such moves. Tinted Lens was the subject of my deleted post, but to sum things up, it essentially makes stuff like Encore and Trick useless. While I definatly think that trying to stop EVERYTHING is impossible, I also think that only trying to punish users would still make CAP9 weak to stuff like toxic or entry hazards.
Anyway, I must say that since there is no way we can prevent everything, we shouldn't focus on stopping everything, but instead use a combination of preventive and punishing methods. For example you could give this pokemon stuff like Pursuit, Encore, or Liquid Ooze to punish secondary users, and stuff like Tinted Lens, Taunt, and Rapid Spin to prevent such moves. Tinted Lens was the subject of my deleted post, but to sum things up, it essentially makes stuff like Encore and Trick useless. While I definatly think that trying to stop EVERYTHING is impossible, I also think that only trying to punish users would still make CAP9 weak to stuff like toxic or entry hazards.
The only problem with "punishing" is that it is really only viable on a predicted switch and is only possible through ability. Aside from using encore (all that I can think of), although, again with a poke being so focused on secondary hate I can't see why an opponent would try something like that anyways.
However, as has been noted. Punishing + a few secondary blocks is obviously quite viable. I just don't think the center of focus should be punishing.
However, as has been noted. Punishing + a few secondary blocks is obviously quite viable. I just don't think the center of focus should be punishing.
I like the concept of multitype. It makes it alot more adaptable.
But let's face it, multitype can't solve every problem. That is why i think that it should have two different abilities. Lot's of pokemon have the option to choose from diffrent abilities, why can't this one? It would make the pokemon much more adaptable. May I suggest Multitype/Natural cure.
Also, I think CAP9 should get Aromatherapy, as it's ability to heal teamates is a viable deterant, although a small one.
But let's face it, multitype can't solve every problem. That is why i think that it should have two different abilities. Lot's of pokemon have the option to choose from diffrent abilities, why can't this one? It would make the pokemon much more adaptable. May I suggest Multitype/Natural cure.
Also, I think CAP9 should get Aromatherapy, as it's ability to heal teamates is a viable deterant, although a small one.
Finally something we agree on. I knew if I said the opposite of what I meant somebody would immediately refute it :)
Ugh, people are still being confused by this. It's not supposed to solve every problem, only a variety. We're not trying to make this thing immune to every possible secondary effect. It doesn't need to have two abilities. Just because "lots of Pokemon" can doesn't mean this one has to as well.
And if anyone hasn't read Plus' post, we are not to be discussing specific abilities and/or typing. That can be discussed in their respective discussion threads later in the process. This thread is basically for everyone to get a good idea about what this concept is, we shouldn't get in too much detail.
I agree with threeQuestions in that curing status can be as important to CAP9 as stopping it. Being able to get rid of all of your team's status problems at once quite discourages the opponent from trying to put them up again.
Not seeing anybody stepping up that much to the plate for discussion here, so I'll try to start it off clean again! (Oh, and I'm giving a 5 hour extension for this thread, it really needs it btw)
To be honest, I didn't like the answers I got from the fourth question I asked: " How are immunities used in the current metagame? How can we apply that knowledge to this project?" You could give me all the examples of immunities in the world, but that still doesn't answer the question given. I'm not looking for what an immunity is, rather, how you would take advantage of it.
This ties into a bit of how this concept would play out in the long run. From my experience, immunities are used for an easy switch in, to score free turns. Fidgit is an example of this, as it uses its immunities to switch in easily and set up entry hazards/spin/wish/whatever. However, that does not make this concept similar to Fidgit in any way.
How many ways can we exactly use immunities? What does that free turn give us the freedom to do? What would we get from stopping the secondary? A pokemon with immunity to certain secondary factors are usually good, but the question that I think needs to be answered for this CAP is basically, "How far can we go with just immunities alone?" And so, I present to you my last question I wanted discussed.
A pokemon with good immunities is generally, good. What I think we would gain from an immunity pokemon is a deeper understanding of how the metagame came to be. Is it not a coincidence that the top 10 pokemon in the current OU metagame have immunities to secondary moves? Perhaps with this CAP, we could make it immune to harder to deal with traits in order to make it interesting.
I guess what I'm looking for in this CAP is originality with combinations of immunities to spice up the metagame. To take on a variety of secondary moves, and to make it work in standard OU alongside other teams would be great. You see status moves such as Thunder Wave and Will o Wisp which really do make it annoying for offense to sweep, and you look at Stall teams in OU, and they are hesitant to make things non-Trick weak, or so to speak. What if we had that weapon in Offense who didn't give a shit about status? What if we had that wall in Stall who could eat Trick like a man?
Discuss! =)
To be honest, I didn't like the answers I got from the fourth question I asked: " How are immunities used in the current metagame? How can we apply that knowledge to this project?" You could give me all the examples of immunities in the world, but that still doesn't answer the question given. I'm not looking for what an immunity is, rather, how you would take advantage of it.
This ties into a bit of how this concept would play out in the long run. From my experience, immunities are used for an easy switch in, to score free turns. Fidgit is an example of this, as it uses its immunities to switch in easily and set up entry hazards/spin/wish/whatever. However, that does not make this concept similar to Fidgit in any way.
How many ways can we exactly use immunities? What does that free turn give us the freedom to do? What would we get from stopping the secondary? A pokemon with immunity to certain secondary factors are usually good, but the question that I think needs to be answered for this CAP is basically, "How far can we go with just immunities alone?" And so, I present to you my last question I wanted discussed.
A pokemon with good immunities is generally, good. What I think we would gain from an immunity pokemon is a deeper understanding of how the metagame came to be. Is it not a coincidence that the top 10 pokemon in the current OU metagame have immunities to secondary moves? Perhaps with this CAP, we could make it immune to harder to deal with traits in order to make it interesting.
I guess what I'm looking for in this CAP is originality with combinations of immunities to spice up the metagame. To take on a variety of secondary moves, and to make it work in standard OU alongside other teams would be great. You see status moves such as Thunder Wave and Will o Wisp which really do make it annoying for offense to sweep, and you look at Stall teams in OU, and they are hesitant to make things non-Trick weak, or so to speak. What if we had that weapon in Offense who didn't give a shit about status? What if we had that wall in Stall who could eat Trick like a man?
Discuss! =)
I think immunities isn't really the way to go about thinking though.
I could theorymon you a pokemon that was Steel/Ground with Flash Fire and it would be effectively immune to Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Thunder Wave with a 4x SR Resistance. That would stop a lot of the secondary going around but what exactly do you do with it after that? It's weak to bulky waters and Gyarados will dominate it as a general rule, the fact it would give Gyarados that much more opportunity would itself discourage use, although there are ways around that with Stats and Movepool.
Even upon review the fact it makes no logical sense doesn't mean it would be bad for the project. Still, that's the best theorymon I could give you for an "immunity pokemon" to the most common status moves and hazards. You could go pretty far with such a pokemon, but I'm not sure it would "stop the secondary" because Steel/Ground still can't do much to Ghosts, people would probably just switch from Rotom-H to Rotom-W.
Free turns are always helpful I suppose, but I prefer to have a switch-in that causes an immediate threat, one sufficient to discourage the opponent from staying in while leaving their switch-in in a similarly disadvantaged position. Pursuit kind of turns that on its head though, as a Choiced switchin with Pursuit absolutely slaughters most Trick users.
Free turns are epic in any battle, but remember that status-moves are usually a precursor to offense. I'd much rather take the status and then use it to bludgeon my opponent than try and switch in on a plethora of immunities to non-damaging moves.
I could theorymon you a pokemon that was Steel/Ground with Flash Fire and it would be effectively immune to Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Thunder Wave with a 4x SR Resistance. That would stop a lot of the secondary going around but what exactly do you do with it after that? It's weak to bulky waters and Gyarados will dominate it as a general rule, the fact it would give Gyarados that much more opportunity would itself discourage use, although there are ways around that with Stats and Movepool.
Even upon review the fact it makes no logical sense doesn't mean it would be bad for the project. Still, that's the best theorymon I could give you for an "immunity pokemon" to the most common status moves and hazards. You could go pretty far with such a pokemon, but I'm not sure it would "stop the secondary" because Steel/Ground still can't do much to Ghosts, people would probably just switch from Rotom-H to Rotom-W.
Free turns are always helpful I suppose, but I prefer to have a switch-in that causes an immediate threat, one sufficient to discourage the opponent from staying in while leaving their switch-in in a similarly disadvantaged position. Pursuit kind of turns that on its head though, as a Choiced switchin with Pursuit absolutely slaughters most Trick users.
Free turns are epic in any battle, but remember that status-moves are usually a precursor to offense. I'd much rather take the status and then use it to bludgeon my opponent than try and switch in on a plethora of immunities to non-damaging moves.
Immunities, eh? We all know immunities give you a free switch-in. Hopefully we can capitalise on a free switch-in by not budging. If you want to switch CAP9 into the battle, you want it to stay in the battle, no matter how many secondaries its not immune to hits it. We can effectively stop secondaries by making a pokemon sturdy enough not to switch out from them.
Well obvoiusly immunities are good, but immunities, a good pokemon does not make. Take Diftblim for example-It has immunities to both Ground and Fighting, but it isn't really viable in OU, and is merely mediocre in UU. So immunites are important, but we need to look at two things about them:
1) Can this pokemon use the immunities to do anything with them, like boost its stats or set-up something?
2) Is it worthwhile switching in on these immunities? (For example lets say this was a specially based Ground type. sure it could switch into Blissey's and Celebi's t-wave, but it can't do anything to them)
I suggest that we discuss what immunities would be most useful, and not just try to find combinations of typing/abilities that give us the most immunities possible. We could then sort of build CAP9 around these immunities to make the most of them. Like if it were immune to poison, then it should be able to beat most of the pokemon that use Poison.
Yes, immunities are absolutely fine, when you have 1 or 2. Throw on Levitate? Insomnia? Great.
If immunities are all people want to consider, that's not great, not at all. Not to mention the people who say that CAP9 should be offensively biased. Providing this Pokemon with finite numbers of immunities would do it well, no Pokemon made by CAP should be absolutely perfect.
Especially towards abilities, and i'm for the immunity of your choice (Multitype), but providing too many of them is simply overloading CAP9 with the same burden that Shedinja has. Only superfast with lots of attack. Hell no.
There are many alternatives to look for other than immunities: wish passing, which will help SR weak Pokemon. Aromatherapy: Another way to get around dangerous, crippling status. Safeguard: Prevents the status in the first place! By using these preventatives we can create a Pokemon that stops the secondary effects without being an absolute force of destruction.
If immunities are all people want to consider, that's not great, not at all. Not to mention the people who say that CAP9 should be offensively biased. Providing this Pokemon with finite numbers of immunities would do it well, no Pokemon made by CAP should be absolutely perfect.
Especially towards abilities, and i'm for the immunity of your choice (Multitype), but providing too many of them is simply overloading CAP9 with the same burden that Shedinja has. Only superfast with lots of attack. Hell no.
There are many alternatives to look for other than immunities: wish passing, which will help SR weak Pokemon. Aromatherapy: Another way to get around dangerous, crippling status. Safeguard: Prevents the status in the first place! By using these preventatives we can create a Pokemon that stops the secondary effects without being an absolute force of destruction.
If immunities were the only thing we would have in mind when creating this pokemon, I agree it would get shitty. I'm more towards emphasizing what kinds of immunities work well with certain types of playing styles, and going from there to create a pokemon in that designated field. Please understand that I'm not saying "immunities are everything", rather just saying immunities are what would make this pokemon a useful tool in offense/stall/balance/etc.
Who's to say that this pokemon would not be able to cause an immediate threat? Say I had a pokemon with Trick Scarf that tried to trick a pokemon that was both immune to trick and could set up. Is that not threatening?
While immunities give free turns, it's really up to how we create this pokemon as to how they can use these free turns. Stopping the secondary would be just stopping the secondary if we didn't have the mindset that we were actually creating a pokemon to use in OU.
Who's to say that this pokemon would not be able to cause an immediate threat? Say I had a pokemon with Trick Scarf that tried to trick a pokemon that was both immune to trick and could set up. Is that not threatening?
While immunities give free turns, it's really up to how we create this pokemon as to how they can use these free turns. Stopping the secondary would be just stopping the secondary if we didn't have the mindset that we were actually creating a pokemon to use in OU.
We can also use immunities not only to switch in, but to also force our opponent to switch out. It can force stall pokemon to switch if the only way they can damage you is will-o-wisp for example (they'd have other moves too but being a stall pokemon, they'd suck). Its just something to bear in mind when talking about immunities. To a degree, they work like a mini-taunt, forcing the opponent to use other options...
Well, most of the users that have secondary effective moves are biased to the special side. If we look at the list of general secondary effect moves, we get these:
Sleep
Poison
Paralysis
Confusion
Burn
Freeze
Stealth Rocks:
Spikes:
Toxic Spikes
Weather Conditions (Hail, Sandstorm, Rain, Sun)
Gravity
Trick Room
Trick
Taunt
Encore
Leech Seed
Now, if we look at the Pokemon that commonly use these secondary effects, we get these:
Sleep: Roserade, Gengar, Bronzong.
Poison: Blissey, Cresselia, Porygon2.
Paralysis: Blissey, Jirachi, Cresselia, Porygon2.
Confusion: Rotom-S.
Burn: Rotom-A, Heatran.
Freeze: Most Ice-type users are on the special side.
Stealth Rocks: Aerodactyl, Swampert, Hippowdon, basically all physical.
Spikes: Skarmory, Roserade, Fidgit, Forretress.
Toxic Spikes: Tentacruel, Fidgit, Roserade.
Weather Conditions (Hail, Sandstorm, Rain, Sun): Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Abomasnow, Rotom-A, Fidgit, ehh this can be anything really.
Gravity: Blissey, Starmie, Fidgit.
Trick Room: Fidgit, Slowbro, Porygon2, Bronzong, Jirachi.
Trick: Rotom-A, Jirachi, Starmie.
Taunt: Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Azelf.
Encore: Fidgit, Clefable.
Leech Seed: Celebi, Pyroak, Breloom.
(probably missed some here and there, but these are just examples)
As you can see, the majority of these examples attack on the special side, rather than the physical side.
So, when discussing what immunities will be most useful, then the list above could give us a general direction of what CAP could look like by means of ability, movepool, stat spread, and typing.
Sleep
Poison
Paralysis
Confusion
Burn
Freeze
Stealth Rocks:
Spikes:
Toxic Spikes
Weather Conditions (Hail, Sandstorm, Rain, Sun)
Gravity
Trick Room
Trick
Taunt
Encore
Leech Seed
Now, if we look at the Pokemon that commonly use these secondary effects, we get these:
Sleep: Roserade, Gengar, Bronzong.
Poison: Blissey, Cresselia, Porygon2.
Paralysis: Blissey, Jirachi, Cresselia, Porygon2.
Confusion: Rotom-S.
Burn: Rotom-A, Heatran.
Freeze: Most Ice-type users are on the special side.
Stealth Rocks: Aerodactyl, Swampert, Hippowdon, basically all physical.
Spikes: Skarmory, Roserade, Fidgit, Forretress.
Toxic Spikes: Tentacruel, Fidgit, Roserade.
Weather Conditions (Hail, Sandstorm, Rain, Sun): Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Abomasnow, Rotom-A, Fidgit, ehh this can be anything really.
Gravity: Blissey, Starmie, Fidgit.
Trick Room: Fidgit, Slowbro, Porygon2, Bronzong, Jirachi.
Trick: Rotom-A, Jirachi, Starmie.
Taunt: Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Azelf.
Encore: Fidgit, Clefable.
Leech Seed: Celebi, Pyroak, Breloom.
(probably missed some here and there, but these are just examples)
As you can see, the majority of these examples attack on the special side, rather than the physical side.
So, when discussing what immunities will be most useful, then the list above could give us a general direction of what CAP could look like by means of ability, movepool, stat spread, and typing.
If you want to go on immunities, I think we are on the same page. Some great examples of Pokemon who make the most of their immunities are Heatran and Flygon.
Would Heatran be so awesome without that unique Fire immunity? Would Flygon even be OU without the Electric (Thunder Wave) immunity? Let alone the Ground immunity.
When a Pokemon can switch in to a variety of moves, Status or damaging and can viably run sets with Choice items, all of a sudden they are a real pain to KO or cripple, especially when they have a Scarf (making them fast), can U-Turn or just make pain.
These are some characteristics CAP9 could have. Good typing and immunities + the stats and move pool to run Choice sets. That's a very unoriginal way to do this though but it delivers what we want IMO.
While I think that immunities are a very useful thing to have, I agree with many others that making the focus of this CAP being immune to various forms of secondary damage isn't necessarily the way to go. Deck Knight's post serves to highlight my primary concerns in this regard. I mean, we can take a look at Fidgit, who can be immune most forms of status (except Burn and Paralysis inflicted by moves other than Thunder Wave) and has Rapid Spin to get rid of hazards and such, but I don't necessarily think that he has served to "stop the secondary" in such a large way.
If we're looking to devalidate secondary forms of damage as a whole, which is how I interpret moi's concept, I would like to propose that we make this Pokemon actually turn the presence of such strategies into a potential liability for the user. We can do this in a variety of ways, most of them based around ability or various moves. My primary idea is that this Pokemon either has an ability that immediately bounces back moves like Leech Seed and Taunt (like auto Magic Coat) or it has a move that does the same, but it would be stronger than Magic Coat in that you can bounce them back at your discretion (turn 1, CAP9 switches into Celebi using Leech Seed, turn 2, the opponent switches in <generic switch-in poke> and CAP9 bounces back the Leech Seed at it). Pair it up with some status immunities and not only does this mean that the Pokemon makes a fantastic switch-in to secondary damaging moves, but it would also serve to "stop the secondary" as a whole, on a metagame level.
Now, obviously what I'm proposing is very powerful, and if people fear that would be too much, there would obviously be many other ways to interpret this/go a similar route. We could make it trade field effects with the opponent, it could only bounce back certain effects, all of this is at our discretion. But I think that taking this general approach, in addition to giving a couple of immunities, is a great way to implement this concept in a way that greatly effects the metagame and the use of secondary damaging moves.
Edit: I now realize that a lot of people might interpret this post as me explicitly promoting a very specific idea for a move, and I really don't want that to happen. That idea was purely for the sake of example, and we could obviously go a variety of different ways with this. But basically the point I am trying to make is that "stopping the secondary" is not synonymous with "being immune to the secondary", and that a lot of weight rests on what the ability of this Pokemon will be or whether it will get a special move if it's going to truly discourage the use of secondary damaging moves in the metagame.
If we're looking to devalidate secondary forms of damage as a whole, which is how I interpret moi's concept, I would like to propose that we make this Pokemon actually turn the presence of such strategies into a potential liability for the user. We can do this in a variety of ways, most of them based around ability or various moves. My primary idea is that this Pokemon either has an ability that immediately bounces back moves like Leech Seed and Taunt (like auto Magic Coat) or it has a move that does the same, but it would be stronger than Magic Coat in that you can bounce them back at your discretion (turn 1, CAP9 switches into Celebi using Leech Seed, turn 2, the opponent switches in <generic switch-in poke> and CAP9 bounces back the Leech Seed at it). Pair it up with some status immunities and not only does this mean that the Pokemon makes a fantastic switch-in to secondary damaging moves, but it would also serve to "stop the secondary" as a whole, on a metagame level.
Now, obviously what I'm proposing is very powerful, and if people fear that would be too much, there would obviously be many other ways to interpret this/go a similar route. We could make it trade field effects with the opponent, it could only bounce back certain effects, all of this is at our discretion. But I think that taking this general approach, in addition to giving a couple of immunities, is a great way to implement this concept in a way that greatly effects the metagame and the use of secondary damaging moves.
Edit: I now realize that a lot of people might interpret this post as me explicitly promoting a very specific idea for a move, and I really don't want that to happen. That idea was purely for the sake of example, and we could obviously go a variety of different ways with this. But basically the point I am trying to make is that "stopping the secondary" is not synonymous with "being immune to the secondary", and that a lot of weight rests on what the ability of this Pokemon will be or whether it will get a special move if it's going to truly discourage the use of secondary damaging moves in the metagame.
Is there a possibility that this could be a spinner that is actually threatening to ghosts? How about threatening to taunt users? What if this was, instead of being defensive, had somewhat offensive stats that threatened switches in order to get off that aromatherapy or rapid spin? I mean, you guys are already intent on it having some good immunities, so who says it needs good defenses to switch in? Downside is you would need to be careful to keep it from becoming a sweeper (maybe klutz + no boosting moves could prevent that?).
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