[Little Battler]

Oh god, more responses than I've ever had on smogon.

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

More responses!
Little Battler's Tactical Retreat: The ability for a single Pokemon to change from an offensive to a defensive Pokemon is a cool idea, but I can't really see how this would work in practice. Form changing is not really something we want to get into, and most other moves or abilities that seem appropriate focus more on going from defensive to offensive, rather than vice versa. Probably the biggest thing I would like to see here is more of an explanation on how this would even be possible to achieve.

Honestly? The easiest solution would be to implement a custom move that raises defense while reducing attack. However, there is a workaround for this. Contrary. The ability that doesn't seem to have any viable users. Contrary Shell Smash fits the concept quite well, doesn't it? It is, however, simply one of the many ways we can get around the problem, and happens to be the only one currently on the top of my head.

Originally Posted by Fat psykokitty

Since I was considering submitting a similar concept, I'd like to offer some discussion on this:



The first thing that jumps out to me is jas's comment "Form changing is not really something we want to get into". My response to that - why not? While it's true that form-changing is a mechanic that is all but absent from the metagame that we're building this CAP for, it raises the question "Why don't form-changing Pokemon have a greater presence in competitive Pokemon?" From a purely objective standpoint, form-changing takes a pokemon and turns it into a moving target, making it (theoretically) that much harder to take down. Can we create a balanced form-changer that is competitively viable in OU?

This leads to the main bulk of what I wanted to address here: the question of possibility. Every ability regarding form-changing (Color Change, Forecast, Multitype, Zen Mode) is on the Primary Ability banlist and custom abilities are also banned, so using an ability accomplish this is out of the question, barring a major overhaul of all the hard work that the PRC just finished. However, there is another precedent for form-changing in Meloetta. According to Serebii, Bulbapedia, and Smogon, Relic Song itself has no effect on the user's form; its secondary effect is simply a 10% chance of inducing sleep. However, it's the combination of Meloetta + Relic Song that causes the form change. This means that another pokemon, say Rotom, could hypothetically use Relic Song and no form change would happen.

It's a long shot, but based on this precedent we could assign an already existing move that, when used by CAP5 specifically, changes its form. The effect of this is that we'd be installing a toggle-switch on CAP5 that the player could use to switch between forms arbitrarily. This is drifting away from my interpretation of Little Battler's concept, which would involve form-changing as a reaction to existing conditions in the manner of Castform or Darmanitan.

Possibility aside, practicality becomes a concern with this concept as well, which is the main reason I decided against submitting something similar. A form-changing CAP would require more art submissions, typing discussions, ability discussions, etc because we'd essentially be making two pokemon (albeit linked pokemon). While these are certainly surmountable obstacles, having all these additional stages wouldn't let us fairly evaluate the new TLT structure against the old Strong TL model. Furthermore, there is an optics element that would need to be taken into consideration. Personally, the latter is of lesser concern, but the former causes me to think that CAP5 is not the right time for a form-changer.

tl;dr - Form-changing is possible, but achieving it drifts away from the proposed concept. Practicality concerns suggest that CAP5 is not the right time for a form-changer.

But form changing is also awesome, although I am aware that it is pretty difficult to implement, which is why I didn't state it out loud.

Originally Posted by Fat Lol_cakes

Here Are My Favorites-
Little Battler Tactical Retreat: You blew my mind, can we just do this for the hell of it please lol? I don't have time to write my review for you so I'll just throw you my score lol. Personal Rating- 9.7/10

Oh god yes thank you Lol_cakes, you are too kind~