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Old Sep 30th, 2012, 11:27:57 AM   #2
bugmaniacbob
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Abilities II, the exciting sequel. Drama, action, and what not.

Well, anyway, here we are. With the close of the last poll, we have as a community decided that our first ability shall be Weak Armour (and henceforth it shall be spelled thus). But that's not going to be our only ability – we still have two more to go! So, let's see where we go from here.

I don't have an awful lot to say, except that this Abilities Discussion will be more or less a continuation of the first, except that this time, I will be taking Weak Armour into consideration, as per how well the second ability interacts with the first, as I develop a slate, and I would encourage you all to bear it in mind when proposing abilities – or, later, voting on abilities. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. What I would particularly like to impress upon you all is that what we want to achieve from our abilities is some sort of necessary duality – in that by choosing one, you are making a conscious risky decision, as per that the ability you chose will help in some situations but not in others. I would like to refer you back to the Yanmega example of the previous thread – Speed Boost aids it against faster revenge killers, but Tinted Lens allows it to deal more damage – and, indeed, to prevent a comfortable switch on the part of the opponent. It is important to also consider, here, the competitive ramifications of said ability – we should aim for an ability that is roughly equal to Weak Armour in competitive viability, or more accurately, one where Weak Armour would provide a greater Reward in about half of all potential situations. Naturally, the rest of the CAP will also be built with this principle in mind – but that's no reason to shelve the issue until later.

As far as abilities likely to come up are concerned, as regards the abilities rejected in the last poll, I would still be in favour of No Guard and Illusion, largely because they can be useful with almost any stat spread and have their own reasonable share of advantages and disadvantages when compared to Weak Armour, in addition to those concept-related reasons we discussed earlier. Moxie is another interesting option, as per the relationship between either needing Attack boosts or needing Speed boosts in order to sweep, though I worry about how we can make both Attack and Speed low enough that these abilities are a significant part of how the Pokemon is played without impacting upon its overall competitive viability. Still, I am relatively confident that we could, realistically, make it work. I no longer believe that Simple is a viable option, however; it seems it could only ever be far more powerful or far less powerful than Weak Armour, depending on what boosting moves we decided to give it. Still, if anybody felt like arguing for it, you're still welcome to put it up for a second look.

Anything else people feel like suggesting is fair game. Just remember to try to keep a level head on proceedings. Please.

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