Smogon Community - View Single Post - CAP 4 - Part 3

jackm · Sep 22nd, 2012, 5:18:20 PM

An important thing we need to address in the creation of CAP4 is how it interacts with weather. I'd like to draw our attention for a moment to the interesting relationship that Bug/Psychic has with Tyranitar. The strongest special STAB move that CAP4 would be able to use against Tyranitar is Bug Buzz, obviously; unfortunately, even with Choice Specs Bug Buzz only OHKOs Specially Defensive (252/252+) Tyranitar if CAP4 is running 252+ SAtk with a minimum of 221 base SAtk, even after Stealth Rock. The significance of being able to OHKO Tyranitar should hopefully be apparent to most, namely that if Tyranitar has a chance to attack, Fire Blast/Stone Edge/Crunch/Pursuit will hurt. A lot. Now, we can't give CAP4 221+ Special Attack because it would ravage the tier; this should also hopefully be apparent.

We've set out on CAP4 with the mission of creating a "Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly." According to the PO August OU usage statistics, Tyranitar is used on 13.399 of teams in the current metagame. That's more than one Tyranitar on every 8 teams that we face without having the added component of something that's extremely threatened by T-Tar being on practically every single team out there (playtest). Tyranitar is just one example, as well. Scizor would be another that put CAP4 in a sticky situation if it's not threatened by something in CAP4's moveset. Assuming we don't end up giving CAP4 a Fire-typed priority attack (seriously, BMB... I'd like to see you come up with the flavor explanation for that) Scizor could also pose a threat. Similar situations arise for other pokes which also would be good counters and at the same time are dangerous in other respects; examples include Genesect and Air Balloon Heatran. The point I'm trying to make with this is that in order for CAP4 to get around these threats it's going to need to specialize too much in being able to eliminate them and while this is a risk that the user is taking when using CAP4, I feel it may be too much of a risk and lower the appeal of using CAP4 to an extent.

Sep 22nd, 2012, 5:18:20 PM	#16
jackm Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 330 Seattle	An important thing we need to address in the creation of CAP4 is how it interacts with weather. I'd like to draw our attention for a moment to the interesting relationship that Bug/Psychic has with Tyranitar. The strongest special STAB move that CAP4 would be able to use against Tyranitar is Bug Buzz, obviously; unfortunately, even with Choice Specs Bug Buzz only OHKOs Specially Defensive (252/252+) Tyranitar if CAP4 is running 252+ SAtk with a minimum of 221 base SAtk, even after Stealth Rock. The significance of being able to OHKO Tyranitar should hopefully be apparent to most, namely that if Tyranitar has a chance to attack, Fire Blast/Stone Edge/Crunch/Pursuit will hurt. A lot. Now, we can't give CAP4 221+ Special Attack because it would ravage the tier; this should also hopefully be apparent. We've set out on CAP4 with the mission of creating a "Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly." According to the PO August OU usage statistics, Tyranitar is used on 13.399 of teams in the current metagame. That's more than one Tyranitar on every 8 teams that we face without having the added component of something that's extremely threatened by T-Tar being on practically every single team out there (playtest). Tyranitar is just one example, as well. Scizor would be another that put CAP4 in a sticky situation if it's not threatened by something in CAP4's moveset. Assuming we don't end up giving CAP4 a Fire-typed priority attack (seriously, BMB... I'd like to see you come up with the flavor explanation for that) Scizor could also pose a threat. Similar situations arise for other pokes which also would be good counters and at the same time are dangerous in other respects; examples include Genesect and Air Balloon Heatran. The point I'm trying to make with this is that in order for CAP4 to get around these threats it's going to need to specialize too much in being able to eliminate them and while this is a risk that the user is taking when using CAP4, I feel it may be too much of a risk and lower the appeal of using CAP4 to an extent.