CAP 13 CAP 2 - Part 5 - Ability Discussion

Pwnemon said:

Also throwing support behind CompoundEyes.

Actually, if I can convince you guys, I would rather say No Guard

Why No Guard? Surprisingly, it's not overpowered. It opens up all these new attacking options that are basically unexplored: Magma Storm, Zap Cannon, DynamicPunch (ok that's explored but) Blizzard, Inferno, Focus HIT, etc.

The point is, CAP2 gets one overpowered move. At the cost of boosting. I find that to be a fair trade, and it will open up more defensive sets to possibility.

Other than that, CAP can get a boost to moves it already will probably have: WoW, Leech Seed, Power Whip, Stun Spore, and more. But it only gets ONE powerful move.

I think we can all say that's not overpowered

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The fact No Guard means your opponents moves will always hit, including their own low acc moves like Hypnosis and Will-O-Wisp (and arguably Toxic), is definitive proof that No Guard does not aid defensive sets in the slightest and is actually a hindrance. Compoundeyes doesn't share those weaknesses, and in truth people will still risk a 91% Blizzard, Thunder, or Focus Blast. ZC and Dynamicpunch aren't worth biasing towards with the ability.

Never mind your MASSIVE polljump on the support movepool.

I actually really like Technician, it just really opens up a huge variety of attacking options. Priority, pursuit, weak STABs.... sure 90 BAP Hidden Power could be an issue but keep in mind you have to lop off some of your IVs which can cause problems depending on the hidden power; I imagine dropping speed won't be taken lightly.
Alternatively we could just not give it HP but I don't see that happening.

Collol said:

Illusion would be a gamechanging ability on CAPmon, adding to its unpredictability. It would also serve as a pseudo-check to the status conditions you people are so worried about. I mean, who would burn a reuiniclus or use a thunder wave on gastrodon? The basic use of Illusion, i.e. impostoring as another pokemon would help CAPmon pull off a boosting move without much trouble, which is a huge plus. Also, the brittleness of Illusion serves as semi-decent check to its power, and if you make a wrong assumptio

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That is in my opinion an amazing idea: It would fit perfectly with its ghost typing and possibly art direction, whilst fulfilling a useful function by possibly allowing time to set up a stat-boost. Moreover, it would not result in it being overpowered and would still allow it to be checked by most counters, i.e. Defnsive/scarf heatran. I second illusion, and for defensive roles cursed body.

I think Illusion would be a bad idea. It's too much of a departure from the concept and would define the use of Sketchmon... or at least hinder our ability to isolate the effect of the concept. I can't see a CAPmon getting Illusion unless it were initially expressed in the concept...

I agree that the abilities should be on relatively "neutral" so that they favor one type of set or another (offensive/support/whatever) since the ability is not what we are testing. I like Compoundeyes right now. When you can have any move in the game, it provides a ton more options. I'm not sure yet what else I think would be good. I feel like Natural Cure might be too much.

I'll out and say what I've been mulling over on IRC and discussing with a lot of CAP players and veterans. I am currently against effective damage boosting moves on CAP 2. Let me elaborate.

After reviewing many of the relevant calculations for CAP 2's Hidden Power (both Technician boosted at 60 BAP and normally at 70 BAP), I have decided that Technician-boosted Hidden Power is indeed too much for CAP 2. We desperately want to keep Heatran and Jirachi and the like as solid responses to CAP 2. I am therefore currently against Technician as an ability for CAP 2, and want to thank the users that specifically went out of their way to argue against it despite its clear advantages for CAP 2. You've made me see the light on an ability that I was otherwise very much for earlier in this discussion thread and before it.

I also want to remind people about the threats we decided were critical for the success of CAP 2. Recall that even with only 85 SpA, Tail Glow and Quiver Dance being sketched are very real possibilities. Specially, CAP 2 is very powerful, and so the presence of Hidden Power is a major deal. CAP 2, currently, has issues with something regardless of its Hidden Power and STAB moves, and thus I want to emphasize how important it is that we don't boost Hidden Power or its STAB options. For this reason, I am also against Analytic and Adaptability. Adaptability mostly because CAP 2's STABs shouldn't be boosted against potent would-be counter Jirachi, and Analytic for the same reason against faster opponents who might check CAP 2.

Lastly, I want to discuss something else about weather. I think CAP 2 should definitely take sandstorm damage. I say this because nickeling and diming CAP 2 down with Life Orb recoil and sandstorm passive damage is a major balancer for it, keeping powerful priority moves like CB Scizor's Bullet Punch as a real threat given CAP 2's defensive stats when not using Shell Smash. These little bits of damage also matter when considering what a typically specially bulky Jirachi is doing in damage with Fire Punch or Ice Punch to +0 Def CAP 2. For this reason, I am currently against Overcoat and strongly opposed to Magic Guard.

Lastly, I think that CAP 2 is already versatile enough with options like QD, TG, SG, and CB sets. For this reason, I strongly oppose abilities that give CAP 2 added dimensions of versatility, like Illusion.

Some abilities that have been brought up that I actually really like. Limber is a solid ability that I think has a lot of merit. Whereas paralysis would actually be a major contributor to beating CAP 2, I think it's really only relevant for Ferrothorn. Every other major user of Thunder Wave that would have checked CAP 2 anyway would much rather KO CAP 2 with coverage or STAB. For instance, Jirachi would much rather KO CAP 2 than paralyze it and sacrifice itself. That's why I like Limber, anyway, but the converse also applies in a big way. Shield Dust is a very good choice because it prevents the undesired effects of Thunder paralyzing us or us being flinched or what-have-you. However, this keeps primary-effect status in the loop, so it really doesn't help against Ferrothorn. For this reason, I think Limber is in general the superior option to Shield Dust for CAP 2, but I feel that I should at least mention Shield Dust to prove my point.

If you want to argue against my current standings on some abilities, please feel free to! I encourage feedback, and as you'll see with Technician, convincing posts can and do change my mind. You guys are guiding me as much as I'm guiding you. Cheers and keep it up!

If we learned only one thing from Cyclohm it was that Shield Dust is a very powerful ability. In general I think CAP 2 has enough going for it that I don't think we need such far-reaching abilities. For perspective, Shield Dust is an effective immunity to flinch and Freeze, and it blocks Burn from every attack except Will-O-Wisp, as well as the paralysis from Thunder, Thunderbolt, and Discharge (among other damaging paralysis inducers). We already have excellent stats and Sketch, we should at least try and curb back our ability selections to something more specific.

I still support Sniper as a compliment to any main ability, if only because it gives niches to a specific set of moves and operates as a more offensive ability that will have a concrete purpose with Sketch (Frost Breath/Mountain Storm) but otherwise provides icing for when you're trying to break a stall (not an unlikely event considering CAP 2 can Spinblock).

The final ability I want to mention here for support is Suction Cups. With access to every booster in the game through Sketch, Suction Cups prevents CAP 2 from being phazed out, so it can continue obtaining bulk. The premier phazer in OU, Skarmory, can still take it out with Brave Bird on the special attacking sets, but it will have a little more difficulty with a Coil set. It also makes CAP 2 an anchor on Baton Pass teams, even though it probably won't be able to pass anything but Substitutes (and with 64 Base HP we're not talking large ones, so it's hardly unbalanced).

Deck Knight said:

The final ability I want to mention here for support is Suction Cups. With access to every booster in the game through Sketch, Suction Cups prevents CAP 2 from being phazed out, so it can continue obtaining bulk. The premier phazer in OU, Skarmory, can still take it out with Brave Bird on the special attacking sets, but it will have a little more difficulty with a Coil set. It also makes CAP 2 an anchor on Baton Pass teams, even though it probably won't be able to pass anything but Substitutes (and with 64 Base HP we're not talking large ones, so it's hardly unbalanced).

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As a baton pass user, I like the idea of suction cups. This also makes the choice of stat boosting attacks over coverage a more viable choice.

As I said before my internet crashed the fuck off the face of the earth and deleted half a fucking hour of writing a response:

Dising Rusk: I agree with all your bans, even though it totally fucks over my previous post, but I'm all up for new options. I would, however, suggest you add Simple and Speed Boost to the ban list before people realize it and think (and I quote from my pre-crash (pre-scratch?) post): "OFUCK."

Kneck Dight: I like that concept, but I fear there will be very few art submissions able to incorporate this. Mine may, however I wouldn't be surprised if the ability thread was closed before the art thread.

My newest suggestions are:
Clear Body or White Smoke, both listed here, because they both fit the ghostly theme and do the exact same fucking thing (*cough Iron Barbs and Rough Skin). This will be good to protect DDer's, Coilers, Gear Shifters, etc. from Intimidate users, and it will also prevent the secondary effects of Seed Flare (for those specs CAP2's), Shadow Ball, and Crunch, in addition to the occasional Screech phazer.
Quick Feet (if we choose a design with feet or an implication thereof, which there are plenty of very popular ones out there). This will give CAP2 at least some way to combat this dreaded curse of "status" without negating any of them. It could also make Flame Orb support/special sets work quite interestingly.

MLaRF said:

Kneck Dight: I like that concept, but I fear there will be very few art submissions able to incorporate this. Mine may, however I wouldn't be surprised if the ability thread was closed before the art thread.

My newest suggestions are:
Clear Body or White Smoke, both listed here, because they both fit the ghostly theme and do the exact same fucking thing (*cough Iron Barbs and Rough Skin). This will be good to protect DDer's, Coilers, Gear Shifters, etc. from Intimidate users, and it will also prevent the secondary effects of Seed Flare (for those specs CAP2's), Shadow Ball, and Crunch, in addition to the occasional Screech phazer.
Quick Feet (if we choose a design with feet or an implication thereof, which there are plenty of very popular ones out there). This will give CAP2 at least some way to combat this dreaded curse of "status" without negating any of them. It could also make Flame Orb support/special sets work quite interestingly.

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I think the difference between art and ability is fine. We've made a mummy that stops all air movement (Revenankh with Air Lock), an evil doll absorb electricity (Voodoom with volt absorb and lightning rod), a land whale with a one turn magic bounce (Colossoil with Rebound) and a shrimp with a magic barrier revolving around it (Krilowatt magic guard and since I can't since of anything, trace). I don't think it's the end of the world if we give CAP2 suction cups or sniper. Quick feet's iffy, though.

I personally support the abilities Sniper, Limber and Compoundeyes as the ability for CAP2.

Sniper is a good ability for CAP2 in my opinion, being able to sketch Frost Breath/Mountain Storm in order to break a defensive booster as well as giving STABs that it might obtain such as Shadow Claw and Leaf Blade a chance to be more threatening. Super Luck could also be considered for the later reason, although i don't like it as much due to the lack of use with Frost Breath/Mountain Storm.

Limber is another solid ability, however it has been talked about a lot in this thread so there isn't much more to say on it. My favourite part of this ability though is that it lets CAP2 come in on/not be threatened by a Ferrothorn's Thunder Wave, which can create opportunities for CAP2 to set up with its move of choice. Water Veil is another ability i support, probably more so than Limber but it might be considered overpowered due to being immune to the attack drop burn brings and being able to switch into Scald/WOW spammers perhaps too easily.

Finally i also like Compoundeyes simply because it gives CAP2 a lot more options with what move it can sketch, something which others have gone into a lot of detail in, but near 100% accurate status moves and making the stronger but less accurate moves an option are the obvious positives, as they would give CAP2 more options in what it chooses to sketch.

I don't have any immediate abilities to throw out there, but I have to say NOT to consider Flash Fire or Trace as an ability since they essentially rule out Heatran as one of our counters, which is not at all what we want.

Jealous said:

Water Veil is another ability i support, probably more so than Limber but it might be considered overpowered due to being immune to the attack drop burn brings and being able to switch into Scald/WOW spammers perhaps too easily.

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Ehh I wouldn't be so sure on this. Something important to the CAP and his typing is that he has to be able to switch into waters like Jellicent, Vaporeon or what have you. Something to consider, do you know why no physical attacking grass types are successful in our metagame? They can't switch into Scald (Breloom being an exception to both of these). The CAP is currently leaning physically, so giving him the ability to switch into the bulky waters is really important in my opinion. At the same time, it doesn't make him at all broken. Look at every thing that learns will o wisp in ou- for every one of those Pokemon, you either (a) would or should not use him to combat CAP2 or (b) COULD use him to stop CAP2, but certainly not through the use of will o wisp. The same applies to all users of Scald, as they are largely water types that should not be staying in against a Grass 'mon that can use any boosting move in the game. In summary, this ability just allows CAP2 to do what its SUPPOSED to do better, without letting it do more than what we set out to do with the spread / typing.

I personally think that a status-stopping ability is key to this 'mon, without going to the ridiculously op Magic Guard. I would support any of Limber, Shield Dust or Natural Cure as well, but NOT Shed Skin. This is, too me, a much too powerful ability as it makes the CAP a ridiculously potent stallbreaker. Being able to set up on every status is super annoying, as is introducing yet another luck variable into the game I love.

Iron Fist is cool but I want to point out that Shadow Punch (60 - 72) and Hammer Arm (100 - 120) aren't much of a gain when we already have Shadow Claw (70), Close Combat (120) and Hi Jump Kick (130). What we really get is Drain Punch (75 - 90) and Focus Punch (150 - 180). Ice Punch is a slight improvement over Icicle Crash, but Fire Punch and Thunder Punch still pale in comparison to options like Sacred Fire, V-Create, and Bolt Strike.

Sniper seems kind of silly to me. Having massive criticals from Shadow Claw just seems annoying to me, and Mountain Storm mostly would just replace Hi Jump Kick. Frost Breath is better than Ice Beam (not that meaningful if we have CE Blizzard), but sketching special moves isn't that likely anyway. If you're "breaking a stall" as DK mentioned you should just use one of your amazing boosting moves, Burn with Sacred Fire, use Leech Seed, or use Sketched Spore or Taunt. I don't see the need for Sniper just so that if we Sketch Splash we can still kill things with instant recovery that we normally only 3HKO. I can't think of any defense boosters that we need Frost Breath or Mountain Storm for, either.

Compound Eyes still seems like the best option to me. Accurate status moves opens up sketch options of either the moves themselves or defensive moves like Recover that would be needed to round out a support set, but wouldn't worth it without the sweet support moves. Thunder, Blizzard, and Magma Storm all open up on the special side, each of which is potentially useful (seriously Magma Storm would be so f-ing awesome). Physical moves like Power Whip, Stone Edge, and Bolt Strike get a boost, but aside from Stone Edge I don't the acc. boost makes or breaks them.

For all those people that want Flash Fire or Water Veil, Flare Boost is an ability that can act as a pseudo Flash Fire, as well as dissuading Scald, but doesn't give CAPmon a complete status immunity. It also fits great in terms of flavour. Now I'm not sure of it myself, but other people have stronger opinions.

I'm going to echo Rising Dusk and say I'm against abilities that affect the base power or accuracy of certain moves. It seems to me that it warps the premise of the CAPmon somewhat; CAPmon is supposed to be able to use all of the moves available to every Pokemon. However there's no way you can actually Sketch a move like 90 base power Hidden Power - we're actually creating moves that otherwise don't exist in the metagame.

It does seem to me like the choice of Technician would change the focus of the project from 'how does diversity work?' to 'which would you pick out of 90BP Scald or 60BP Acid Spray', which really cheapens the concept in my eyes. The same goes for Compoundeyes, where moves start doing things they were never really meant to do.

Better to choose abilities which slightly increase CAPmon's survivability (useful no matter which set you're running), either by aiding prediction with Frisk and Anticipate, or shaking off some status drops with Wonder Skin, Flare Boost or Soundproof (not to throw examples at the wall, but hopefully that conveys what I'm thinking).

Poison Heal was mentioned a few times, but why not just cut out the potentially overpowered part and go for Immunity? CAP 2 doesn't like paralysis on most of its offensive sets, but some offensive sets (e.g. Coil) and most (if not all) support sets would rather be paralyzed than poisoned. I see it as a viable alternative to Limber that doesn't go pointlessly overboard.

EDIT: I guess I'll try to give credit where it's due. I mentioned Immunity half-seriously while we were talking about Limber in the chat, but Birkal was the first to give a fully serious suggestion to help CAP against poison status.

I would like to throw my full support behind Immunity at this point. One major point of CAP2 that we've been discussing since concept assessment is "how do we enlarge the pool that Sketch will derive from". I think it's safe to say that offensive sets have a natural bent over defensive ones; boosting moves and ridiculously base-powered moves are simply too tempting to pass up. Ability Poll is the point in which we get to even the odds, and I think this is our best bet.

I was originally trying to think of ways to enlarge that movepool directly, which is where Compoundeyes came into play. While it is a plausible ability, it should be noted that the moves it helps is almost at random. Seriously, go look at that list I made a few pages back. Or even better, check out a list of Pokemon moves by accuracy. There are so many 100% moves out there that it's almost a waste to give it Compoundeyes. While Magma Storm trapping is tempting, I don't think this ability will really solve anything OR change the way that CAP2 plays. It raises the plausibility of offense more than defense.

Then Limber came into the picture. While the concept of helping CAP2 circumvent status to increase the Sketchpool, I believe that Limber is the wrong way of going about this. Pokemon that benefit the most from Paralysis-freedom ARE offensive Pokemon. Sure, defensive Pokemon don't like to be paralyzed, but they can still handle it. Offensive Pokemon that are going for the boost hate being hit by paralysis. By giving it Limber, we'd actually have the negative correlation of INCREASING the viability of those offensive/boosting sets. I'd like to suggest that this is something we should avoid. CAP2 has a natural offensive bent at this point; let's try not to boost that further.

Now, Immunity is the complete flip-side of Limber. Think to yourself, what status do defensive and supportive Pokemon hate the most? Once you've eliminated Sleep and Freeze, you'd going to end up with Poison. Defensive Pokemon hate to be poisoned as it decreases their potential to stay on the battlefield. Think of some of the best defensive Pokemon in OU at this moment. Ferrothorn. Chansey. Gliscor. Skarmory. Even Reuniclus and Scizor to some extent. What do they all have in common? A way to avoid poison. By giving CAP2 that same advantage, we'd be boosting the viability of defensive sets while giving the highly offensive sets no serious advantage. It essentially evens the odds for CAP2. It increases the Sketchpool by adding viability defensively. Without poison being such a threat, many more of those sets defensive and supportive sets become viable: SubSeed, Dual Screens, Double Status, heck, even trapping to an extent! It's for this reason that I highly recommend we consider Immunity.


tl;dr: Compoundeyes is random, Limber boost offensive sets too much, and Immunity gives a much needed boost to defensive and supportive sets.

I haven't done anything in this or any other CAP discussion, but would Dry Skin be overpowered? it makes it more like a Bug/Steel pokemon, having super resistances while still being utterly destroyed by fire type moves. After thinking about it, dry skin would be overpowered. But its still an option.

Other than that i vote for Effect spore and Cursed body.

im thinking iron fist or effect spore or sheer force.
iron fist: mostly because this guy is a good physical sweep and could use moves that a pretty much useless like shadow punch to great use.

effect spore: because there are bound to be a few physical threats to this guy. effect spore just evens things out.

sheer force: mostly for flavour and extra power on behalf of its average spA stat. this should allow for some suprises mid game.

Personally, I'd choose an ability that increases the pool of viable Sketchable moves. The following fit this criteria:

Compoundeyes increases the accuracy of all moves used by this Pokémon by 30%. A 100% chance burn from Will-o-Wisp may be preferable to Sacred Fire's 50% for defensive sets, in the same way that a 97.5% accurate Sleep Powder means that Spore may not even be a consideration, allowing more creative choices for that Sketch slot. Then of course, those powerful-yet-inaccurate moves such as Stone Edge, Power Whip, Thunder, Hurricane, Focus Blast, Blizzard, Hydro Pump, Seed Flare and Fire Blast become very viable alternatives to their weaker counterparts.

The next two abilities primarily encourage offensive sets, knowing that we'd want to differentiate this CAP with Smeargle. Hustle takes almost the exact opposite of Compoundeyes, risking a 20% accuracy deduction in exchange for a 1.5x boost to its physical moves. A Choice Banded Hustle attack gives an equivalent 2.25x to its attacks. That's gotta hurt! Sheer Force benefits both physical and special offensive sets, boosting attacks by 30% in exchange for their secondary effects. Firing off boosted Bolt Strike, Icicle Crash and Meteor Mash, or Blue Flare, Seed Flare and Shadow Ball, can be very effective.

The Technician section below is pointless, now that RD has said no to it already.

I'm putting my full support behind Natural Cure. We simply don't have enough Pokemon in the OU metagame to check bulky Water-types and shrug off status, and it's the main reason Celebi has hopscotched its way back into OU after a moment of obscurity. Switching into Scald is always supremely annoying for a physical attacker and that 120 Attack is gonna go to waste after one bad switch-in to Politoed or Tentacruel.

Compoundeyes or No Guard is probably the best ability for CAP. It basically gives CAP any one move it wants with no drawbacks (besides like Sky Attack...) which I feel is the point of this CAP.

Cursed Body
For a defensive ability for CAP2, I'd really enjoy having this, as I've used Jellicent before and it can be a very useful defensive manuver when your opponent might only have one thing they can throw against you. This helps out in tandem with the defenses of CAP2, and since the HP is quite low, gives it something to live for still.

Mummy
It has flavor with the ghost typing of CAP2, and is in general a very useful ability. Mummy isn't an overwhelmingly powerful ability, in fact it is just one of those things that you think of as a useful help, but you have better things to do. CAP2 already has insane versatility with a sketch move, and mummy doesnt break it, and merely is a slight addition. Imagine when Jirachi hits you and loses the ability to flinch you. Scizor loses technician. So many pokemon that might be a threat lose that, and if you go with a physical set, you can activate it even more often. Mummy is just a slightly average ability that only helps CAP2 just enough to the point that the major focus is still on the sketch move, but it's something to consider as well seeing how cofagrigus can't make much use of it.

The point of these abilities should be(imo) to increase the variety of moves CAP2 can sketch while remaining competitive.
ie. it shouldn't always have to take Spore, Quiver Dance, V-Create, etc.

bugmaniacbob said:

Compoundeyes - There are a lot of inaccurate attacking moves out there that Sketchy could make good use of. Focus Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Hydro Pump, Stone Edge, Fire Blast, and even Power Whip and Seed Flare could use the boost from this. Sacred Fire and Hi Jump Kick could use the boost too. And as others have mentioned, a 97.5% accurate Will-O-Wisp and Stun Spore can come in handy as well. This is so incredibly useful that it may well be slightly too powerful, but then we can deal with that in the movepool stage. My only slight gripe with it is that it does not make any subset of moves more usable directly, though I suppose it does make Thunder and Blizzard more plausible as coverage moves, or else may free up your Sketch slot by making Focus Blast usable over Sketch Aura Sphere. Or something.

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BMB gives great reasons for these two and pretty much sums up everything I was going to say, so I thought I'd just post them again for all to see. Both of these abilities bring a lot of variety to Sketchy, something which he needs.

Compoundeyes is another great "variety boosting" ability. It alleviates the worry of the dreaded miss and could lead to some very interesting sets(Inferno abuse anyone?).

Another ability I'd like to throw my support behind is Natural Cure. Its an awesome supporting ability, letting Sketchy take those lame statuses 'mons love throwing around, Celebi is proof that this ability is stellar.

Axed the bit about Adaptability after reading what RD said :)

Rising_Dusk said:

I'll out and say what I've been mulling over on IRC and discussing with a lot of CAP players and veterans. I am currently against effective damage boosting moves on CAP 2.

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Please tell me that this includes Compoundeyes. I know that's not all that the ability does, but it is definitely a significant part of what it does, as increasing the accuracy of many attack moves is effectively increasing their average damage output. I am assuming that this also rules out the semi-popular Iron Fist and Sniper, even though you didn't mention them specifically.

Some abilities that have been brought up that I actually really like. Limber is a solid ability that I think has a lot of merit... Shield Dust is a very good choice because it prevents the undesired effects of Thunder paralyzing us or us being flinched or what-have-you... For this reason, I think Limber is in general the superior option to Shield Dust for CAP 2...

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If Limber is superior to Shield Dust, that sounds like the perfect reason to rule out Limber as being too good. Deck Knight is dead on in explaining why Shield Dust is too good, so following this logic, Limber is far too good:

Deck Knight said:

If we learned only one thing from Cyclohm it was that Shield Dust is a very powerful ability. In general I think CAP 2 has enough going for it that I don't think we need such far-reaching abilities. For perspective, Shield Dust is an effective immunity to flinch and Freeze, and it blocks Burn from every attack except Will-O-Wisp, as well as the paralysis from Thunder, Thunderbolt, and Discharge (among other damaging paralysis inducers). We already have excellent stats and Sketch, we should at least try and curb back our ability selections to something more specific.

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Birkal said:

tl;dr: Compoundeyes is random, Limber boost offensive sets too much, and Immunity gives a much needed boost to defensive and supportive sets.

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This, however, I think makes a fantastic case for Immunity. If we want an ability that helps Sketchy deal with status but aren't willing to seriously consider a more random ability like Wonder Skin, then Immunity sounds like a great way to go. Natural Cure could be okay, I guess, but Shed Skin has been done before.

I'm honestly still surprised, though, that Wonder Skin isn't getting more attention, as it not only halves the accuracy of status-inflicting moves like Spore, Thunder Wave, Toxic, and Will-O-Wisp but also of other moves like Confuse Ray, Disable, Encore, Leech Seed, Roar, Taunt, Torment, Trick, and Whirlwind. If nothing else, making Encore and Taunt fail half of the time should make the ability well worth considering.

EDIT: As for final suggestions, I'm still intrigued by the idea of not giving Sketchy anything that's very significant at all. It learns Sketch once, it has very cool typing, and it has fantastic stats, so its ability really may be one of the places where we want to play a bit more conservatively. This doesn't mean giving it a detrimental ability like Defeatist or even an entirely useless ability like Illuminate, but it might mean giving it something that's nice but that just isn't going to come up very often or alter the way that Sketchy is played, like Hyper Cutter or Inner Focus for example. Abilities like these provide benefits that are certainly appreciated but not abusable or amazing.

Rather, I think that Shield Dust is too good and more importantly, doing things that aren't relevant to CAP 2. I think that Limber fits CAP 2 far better than Shield Dust, which is why I think it is better for CAP 2. I also like Immunity a lot, given the discussion I had on IRC and the posts made here.

Anyway, I am very tired, so I am going to leave this open until I wake up tomorrow morning. If you have any last suggestions, please make them between now and then.