Policy Review Ability Banlist

paintseagull

pink wingull
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Increasing the probability of your own shit happening is not, has not, and I'm pretty sure never will be frowned upon - it has always been lowering the chance of your opponent's shit hitting/happening that's gotten the banstick / frownyface by Smogon.
Okay, thanks for clarifying. My post was based on an assumption about what Doug mentioned about Smogon's policy - it wasn't something I knew much about. My problem was that we were discussing something at a vague surface level without delving into the real mechanics of it and I think CAP Policy Review is better than that. Anyhow, I'm satisfied and it seems we've moved on.

As for my personal opinion, I think the current Korski/nyttyn proposal is good and I don't have any issues with the abilities we seem to be close to restricting or banning. The optics seem best with the primary/secondary lists and with the least amount of bans.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
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I can live with Korski's proposal. I think he has placed abilities in sensible locations in relation to the community consensus of this thread. Originally, I thought two ability banlists would be overly complex, but it looks like a solid list now that it has consolidated. If no one has any objections to his proposal within the next few days, let's move ahead with that.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
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I still believe that they should be renamed for the sake of optics. Aside from that, looks like a fairly solid proposal. There should be a "Flavor Ability Only" list though. So we know what's the useless filler garbage we have for flavor.

Also I think we should Ban Illusion. 1. Never again. 2. Signature ability. 3. As we've seen, extremely difficult to balance. One of those cases where there's a huge stigma against it, it's already the signature ability of a pokemon that exists pretty much just to use illusion, and it's shown itself to be far more powerful then it appears on paper.
 
Something else occured to me... would flavor discussions be limited to only abilities on that 'Flavor Only List' or can other abilities be brought up that are generally competitive but for a particular CAP would be flavor? I've seen a recent example of a Poison Type with Poison Heal that illustrates this concern very well.

Other than that, I agree with banning Illusion, for the same reasons nyttyn gave.
 
Korski's proposal sounds good to me.

Magic Guard should be added to the secondary ability banlist. It is definitely an exceptional ability and is good for offensive and defensive pokemon. Completely outclasses Overcoat, Rock Head and Immunity.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
Korski's proposal is pretty good looking in my book. Might need a tad bit of tweaking, but I'm pretty much good with that list they have put together. Definitely with Banning Illusion. Let's not have that mess again.
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
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Korski's Proposal hits the nail on the head in my opinion. We can take an in-depth look at the list at a later date, but separating the Primary Abilities from the Secondary Abilities would definitely prevent a TL(T) from relying too much on abilities to create a good Pokemon.

On 'hax', I really hope we don't get too retentive on luck-based abilities like Smogon has in general, as banning abilities that rely on luck is not necessarily a positive influence on CAP. CAP, as a community and especially the PRC, has been primarily concerned with improving optics, and when it comes to banning Cute Charm and Co., the damage to CAP's optics is greater than the improvement in discussion from banning the abilities.

Hax-based abilities with little competitive merit do not damage discussion greatly. Noobs who post "Cute Charm iz gud on molucks cuz attract is gud and made whitny beat me" (or something like that) may not contribute to anything to discussion, but at least the detriment to discussion is marginal because 1. Those noobs are few and far between and 2. Nobody listens to them anyway. Meanwhile, we do not want to create a perception of being overly concerned with competitiveness and whine every time someone brings up anything remotely luck-based. Banning Cute Charm and Co. would contribute to that image, which is why I'm warning those who prefer to ban noncompetitive abilities to consider optics before swinging the banhammer.

And fuck Illusion. Never again.
 
I stand by Korski's Proposal. I personally believe the signature abilities, such as Illusion, Normalize, and Color Change (essentially, abilities currently found on only one Pokèmon besides Snow Warning) should be added to the primary ability banlist, along with Sand Stream, Drizzle, and Drought due an abundance of weather starters and the current prevalence of those three weathers in the metagame.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
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Just like the Flavor PR thread, we have also come to a general community consensus here as well. I'm glad that we could discuss some of the most controversial abilities in the world of Pokemon in a civil fashion, so thank you guys for making this an easy thread to keep tabs on. Ultimately, Korski's proposal at the end of this thread picked up a lot of momentum, so we're going to run with it. If you disagree with some of the specifics, then we can discuss them after CAP5. Remember though, we only have a few more CAPs to make before Generation 6 hits in October. When that happens, we'll likely need to make a new ability list, and that would probably be the best time to bring up any concerns you may have.

But until that time, we will be using the following ban lists for abilities. The following abilities are banned from all CAP discussions. They are signature abilities, abilities with better alternatives, and abilities that are known to derail CAP discussions. They will be listed at the top of every ability discussion.

Air Lock
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Defeatist
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Sand Veil
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Snow Cloak
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode



The below hide tag contains a list of abilities that are banned from secondary ability discussions. Please note that with this proposal, we're also going to move ahead with the following credential:
All secondary abilities will be considered "secondary" to the primary ability. In essence, they will either be worse than or equal to the primary ability.
This is something that was brought up numerous times in this thread and on #cap, and I think it's a solid rule that will help guide discussions. It's obvious that there's no good way to quantify this rule, so it's something the Ability Leader and Topic Leader will have to contemplate for each specific CAP; this distinction will be left for them to make during the CAP process. Below is the list of abilities that will be banned from secondary discussions.

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Huge Power
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Prankster
Pure Power
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost



The following list consolidates a list of abilities that are banned from competitive ability discussions. They serve no competitive purpose and should not come up in conversation.

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy


There are two more things to cover here as well. First, the CAP moderators will be deleting (or editing out) any posts that discuss banned abilities. Second, the banlist will be posted in the OP of each thread. They can all be consolidated under one hide tag to save space and avoid confusion.

Good work here, everyone. Thanks for all your help!
 

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