CAP 4 Pre-evos - Part 3 - Abilities Discussion

[jas61292]

So this next stage is all about abilities.

Like we have done in the past with prevos, this stage will be quit different from its main CAP counterpart. Rather than discussing one ability at a time, we will be discussing full sets of abilities. Since Aurumoth has 3 abilities, it makes sense that our prevos will as well. Now, I know that there are examples where the number staying the same throughout is not the case, and with strong enough reasoning I might slate a combo with fewer abilities, but as a general rule, it is probably best to assume our prevos will end up with 3 as well.

As always, remember that this project is all about flavor. Random competitive abilities will not be slated unless there is solid flavor reasoning behind them. While I don't want to ban any abilities out right, know that ridiculous things like Multitype or Zen Mode will not even be considered.

This thread will be open for at least 24 hours, after which I will make a slate based on what makes sense and has received community support.

Aurumoth's final product is here.

Our prevos so far:

Type: Bug/Psychic | Bug/Psychic
Abilities: ???
Stats: ???

[DetroitLolcat]

Very often, pseudo-legendary Pokemon have the same abilities throughout their pre-evolved stages and then change that ability on evolving into their final forms. For that reason, I suggest that we give Aurumoth's pre-evolved forms the same three abilities, but make sure those abilities are different than Aurumoth's abilities.

Shield Dust comes to mind as a good ability, as Aurumoth seems to be able to shield itself with its gold wings which crumble into dust when removed.

Cursed Body is also a good flavor choice in my opinion, as looking into Aurumoth's eyes makes a person forget, so maybe touching Aurumoth would make some forget (disable) a move?

Light Metal/Heavy Metal are definitely good choices if Aurumoth's pre-evolutions are also part gold.

Wonder Skin is a nice flavor ability because Aurumoth's skin is obviously pretty dang wonderful if it's made of gold. Extending that to pre-evolutions makes sense.

[DHR-107]

So we have Weak Armour, No guard and Illusion as Dreamworld on Aurumoth. I'd like to either put forward just keeping them the same, or depending on other aspects having the more "bug like" abilities such as Shield Dust or Shell/Battle Armour. Maybe for the second one you could argue for Vital Spirit/Insomnia, as Aurumoth "sleeps for centuries at a time" to recuperate the loss of sleep :P

There aren't a lot of abilities that sort of feed into the ones we have as such. Shell Armour may go into Weak Armour. But No Guard and Illusion generally don't have anything like them at all. Possibly Compound Eyes into No Guard?

[Good_Luck!]

I'm echoing DetroitLolcat's thoughts about changing the abilities; just two pseudo-legendary keeping its pre-evo's abilities: Garchomp and Metagross.

However, one must think about the Bug factor here and look at three-stage Bugs: they all change abilities. In order to keep them logical flavor-wise I think it should be ideal to change the abilities but keep them at three.

Shield Dust seems legit as Wonder Skin does.

Cursed Body doesn't seem too bad but I find it hard to fit into these bugs because it's an ability that always comes with Ghost-typing. Likewise Light Metal/Heavy Metal comes with Steel-typing.

Considering DHR's post about how there are logical transition of abilities, Shell Armor seems completely legit for Weak Armor. No Guard and Illusion are completely difficult to translate, though.

Shield Dust sounds nice to go with Illusion (at least in my head), even Wonder Skin but I'm not sold about Compoundeyes into No Guard; they just don't seem to relate at all.

[GRs Cousin]

Light Metal -> Light Metal -> Weak Armor
Essentially, the idea is that as a lightweight metal, gold is also fragile. The reason we don't ever see golden weapons outside of enchanted ones in fiction like Thundercats? It's weak. Having an entire casing of a weak metal sounds to me like the transition from Light Metal into Weak Armor makes all the sense in the world.

Illusion -> Shield Dust -> Illusion
This one might vary in reception, depending on what we end up having as our artwork. The logic with this goes under the assumption that we get a more cocoon-esque second stage. The larval form must camouflage to survive until it reaches a stronger, more mature form. Likewise, Aurumoth itself uses Illusion as a method of survival and deception to its prey. This leaves the middle form, leaving its stage as prey and entering into predator territory, which comes off to me as passive-aggressive. If a more cocoon-like Pokemon is supposed to be a predator in only some scenarios, wouldn't it make sense if it was defensively inclined? As such, the best natural defense comes less from hiding and more of standing up to other predators. Hence, Shield Dust comes straight to mind.

I don't have any ideas for No Guard's transition, but I thought I would help by listing the former two ability lines. Thoughts?

[srk1214]

I firmly believe Illusion, flavor-wise, should remain the Dream World option on the whole evolutionary line.

The thing I actually quite like is both of the prevos getting Shed Skin. This is the same as Dratini/Dragonair having Shed Skin and then Dragonite switching. Wonder Skin is a little too specialized for me, being on only Sigilyph as a non-DW option.

For leading into No Guard, I'm more in favor of Keen Eye, if we do change anything there. The two lines with No Guard as main ability, Golurk's and Machamp's, both have it all the way through. Karrablast switches away from it upon evolving, but that's a DW ability. But really, just look at the eyes on Aurumoth (and Quanyails' prevo designs, since they're the only ones up so far.)

GOGO Shed Skin and Keen Eye on both Prevos!

[Deck Knight]

My thoughts on this stem from the fact that for being such a flavor-driven process, it was forgotten that all 3 Stage BST 600 Pokemon only have one ability each plus a DW ability. This leaves us in a conundrum where we can either pull a Pupitar and have a DW Ability be the same as a regular ability, or we can be a little more subtle about it.

Since our prevos are now definitively Bug/Psychic, I think it would be much more useful to emphasize some element of that. Therefore my proposal is as follows:

Prevos:
Forewarn
Weak Armor
DW: Illusion

Aurumoth:
Weak Armor
No Guard
DW: Illusion

Essentially, the prevos that have Weak Armor turn into No Guard Aurumoth, and the prevos with Forewarn turn into Weak Armor Aurumoth.
My logic here is that Weak Armor is actually a better gateway to No Guard because it is an ability that implies the Pokemon is open to dropping its defenses to gain an advantage. Aurumoth base forms that start with Forewarn are inherently more wary of foes but as they make the final evolution they are comfortable with a greater degree of risk. Illusion is kept as the DW Ability as a hidden trait of the species.

I think this works from both a flavor perspective and a competitive perspective, where if there were such a thing as a second stage Aurumoth, it might be useful to an Eviolite Pokemon to not want to deal with any truly negative effects.

[DFrog]

I support that Illusion should remain the Dream World Ability through the evolution process especially because there are none/few abilities that could progress into Illusion in a logical manner.

My suggestion for the abilities are:

1. Shield Dust > Shed Skin > Weak Armour
2. Keen Eye > Compoundeyes > No Guard

The first progression of abilities (Shield Dust > Shed Skin > Weak Armour) seems clear in my mind from a flavour stand point. I'm picturing the first evolution to be a fuzzy caterpillar and Shield Dust seems like a natural ability to fit into the convention of most of the 'larve' pokemon (Weedle, Caterpie Wurmple etc.) have Shield Dust as the primary ability. In its evolution to the second stage the dust would harden into a the 'chrysalis' stage in Aurumoth's evolution. Again the Shed Skin fits into the convention of the second stage bug pokemon having Shed Skin as the primary ability (again referring to Metapod and Kakuna), eventually the the shell would begin to shed/molt into the Weak Armour ability that the fully fledged Aurumoth would have.

The second progression of abilities (Keen Eye > Compoundeyes > No Guard) is a notch more complicated than the first, however it is easy to spot the common theme–all three abilities impact on accuracy. Keen Eye is a neat starting ability as it shows that the basic pokemon learning to become more accurate in its attacks. Compoundeyes is the result of Keen Eye being that the first stage pokemon is now more accurate in its attacks (instead of being undisturbed by accuracy drops), showing a level of progress from basic to first stage. No Guard of course is the result of the accurage boost from Compoundeyes taken to a new level through evolution.

[akela]

Prevo 1: Weak Armor | Shield Dust | Run Away
Reasoning: Really, just based it off of Caterpie/Weedle/Wurmple. I don't have much justification for 3 abilities instead of 2.
Prevo 2: Shed Skin | Shed Skin | Illusion
Reasoning: Look at the 2nd stage (out of 3) Bug-Type pokemon. Look at their abilities. Caterpie has 2 different abilities, then has only 1 possible ability when it evolves into Metapod. Weedle has 2 different abilities, the has only 1 possible ability when it evolves into Kakuna. Wurmple has 2 different abilities, then has only 1 possible ability when it evolves into either Silcoon or Cascoon.
Even Larvitar has 2 different abilities, then has only 1 possible ability when it evolves into Pupitar. Like the previous, it then becomes 2 possible abilities when it evolves into its final form.
I admit, there isn't much precedence with 3 abilities changing to 2 then 3.

[jas61292]

While this thread has been open for nearly two days now, at this point I am finding it hard to see much consensus. I know a lot of people have thrown similar abilities out their, but since abilities will be voted on as a set, I'd like to hear more opinions on specific combinations of abilities, rather than just the abilities themselves.

As to the ideas that are out there, I do have a few opinions on the suggestions. First, I'm not really a big fan of anything with Light Metal. That ability is exclusive to steel types, which we are not. In addition, I can't see it working functionally, as even if we do have metal plating, it makes up such an insubstantial amount of the body that making it lighter would have little effect on the weight.

The combination suggested by Deck Knight is an interesting one. I do like the idea of Forewarn. However, I am not really understanding the reasoning for having Weak Armor not go to Weak Armor. That is something without precedent, as far as I am aware, and in my opinion, Forwarn goes into No Guard just as well as it does Weak Armor.

akela's suggestion of is another cool one. It follows what we have in game (to an extent), by having a middle stage with fewer abilities. At this point we cannot say if the middle stage will end up being a cacoon, but if that is what we want, I do like this idea. I'm not the biggest fan of changing illusion, but if we are going to, this is not a bad way to do it.

Anyways, those are some of my thoughts. What I'd like from here on out is if people could talk about specific combinations of abilities; either those suggested already, or new ideas that you have. At this point it seems like most individual abilities that would fit have been put out there, and we just need to decide how to fit them together. I'll probably give this thread one more day, so try and post within that time if you have any ideas.

[Umbreons]

I think a great combinition would be, first of all, Compound eyes that when they evolve, they get No Guard. This was actually not my idea. This was originally DHR-107's idea. But, I'm just heightening the idea because this is an amazing idea! But, for the other abilities, I think Shield Dust should come into the equation. So maybe Shield Dust should turn into Weak Armor. But, what about the last one, Illusion? I was thinking for a while to think about this one. I finally came up with the ability of Oblivious. This will most likely be my submission for when jas61292 posts the thread.

1st: Shield Dust / Keen Eye / Oblivious
2nd: Heavy Metal / Compoundeyes / Wonder Guard
3rd: Weak Armor / No Guard / Illusion

Most of this is going by my art. Because the Cocoon stage is usually always slower than even the first evo, so Heavy Metal just makes sense. But, then when it evolves, it loses the amazing defense and gets Weak Armor.

[ZhengTann]

I'm supporting DFrog's proposal on this:-

1. Shield Dust > Shed Skin > Weak Armour
2. Keen Eye > Compoundeyes > No Guard

Basically, this has little impact on progression if we're talking about flavour (because if we really want to talk flavour, I think we'd be basing it off the artwork) but mechanics-wise, its solidly good logic, focusing on defenses in the first point, and accuracy in the second. Deck's proposal, though, is quite well thought-out, resembling the in-catridge play very cannily:-

Prevos:
Forewarn
Weak Armor
DW: Illusion

Essentially, the prevos that have Weak Armor turn into No Guard Aurumoth, and the prevos with Forewarn turn into Weak Armor Aurumoth.

[Birkal*]

To make things more simplistic, I've relocated these pre-evo threads to the main forum (with jas61292's permission). Once a thread gets locked, it will get stored in the CAP Pre-Evolution Workshop subforum. Let the conversation continue!

[Raikoben]

Simple is a good risky ability

[DetroitLolcat]

Originally Posted by Fat Raikoben

Simple is a good risky ability

We're not looking for necessarily risky abilities for Aurumoth's pre-evolutions, as the pre-evos for Aurumoth do not have to follow Aurumoth's concept.

Pre-evos are more like fanboy projects than competitive endeavors, so all we're looking at is whether or not the ability "looks good" on a pre-evo to Aurumoth. You can look at the Art thread and gauge what these Pokemon might look like, and when making suggestions, don't feel bound by Aurumoth's competitive concept.

This is just a flavor project, so you don't need to pay attention to "high risk, high reward" when looking for pre-evo abilities :D

[jas61292]

Yeah, as DetroitLolcat said, competitiveness or CAP4's concept have nothing to do with how this Pokemon is to be built. This project is completely flavor, any posts here should be based on what you believe fits this Pokemon from that standpoint.

On a different note, as I said in my last post, the relative lack of activity has made it hard for me to determine exactly what the community wants. While I definitely would like to hear more opinions, at this point this thread has already been going on for much longer than I would have liked, so in one way or another we are going to move ahead tomorow. I am not quite sure yet how exactly to procede at this point, but I just wanted to let people know that if they have anything else to say (which I really hope they do) you will have less than a day to post it, so get to it.

[Mdevil]

I wasn't going to post because i don't have much to say, but since the threads ending soon and more opinions are needed--I really like Deck Knights idea. I don't really have much else to say; it just makes the most sense to me.

[Eagle4]

Okay, I'm with most members here regarding Deck Knight's proposal; it's a good idea which I have no problem with if implemented. However, I feel that having Forewarn and Weak Armour on both stages is very restrictive in terms of flavour; there are many great ideas which have been proposed for only one of the stages. I personally believe that Shield Dust should be chosen for the basic evolution, it seems a plausible option and one which I feel works flavour-wise. Run Away is also a viable choice for our first prevo. I firmly believe that Illusion should remain solely on Aurumoth. It just makes the most sense in my opinion, but meh, it's understandable if the popular choice is otherwise. I'm not really keen on Shed Skin, that ability is assosciated with reptillian pokemon in my opinion. I have that same problem with Light Metal and Heavy Metal. They are just too attatched to the metal typing. Therefore my proposal is:

Prevo 1: Shield Dust/Run Away/Illusion
Prevo 2: Forewarn/Weak Armour/Illusion
Aurumoth: Weak Armour/No Guard/Illusion

The only controversial element I see is the fact that Run Away and Weak Armour don't really associate with one another. I don't really see why that's such a forced regulation in this discussion though. It may be appealing flavour-wise, but I see no problem with such a small thing like that.

[Corkscrew]

Like most people I think Illusion should remain the DW ability for all 3 stages.

I don't really get Decknight's proposal with the abilities. I don't understand why the ones with Weak Armour evolve to not have it and the ones without it evolve to have it. I really like the idea of Shield Dust on the first evolution, then Shed Skin for the second stage, like other cacoon pokemon.
As for leading into No Guard, I really like DFrog's idea of the accuracy slowly improving. It's a really cool idea imo.
So basically I agree with DFrog's proposals.

Originally Posted by Fat DFrog

1. Shield Dust > Shed Skin > Weak Armour
2. Keen Eye > Compoundeyes > No Guard

[Birkal*]

Echoing the above thoughts that Illusion should absolutely be the DW ability for all three mons. It is an event ability and it's a huge deal flavor-wise. I can't imagine why we would want any other ability.

I think many of you are way over thinking this. Changing a primary ability to a secondary ability is rare in the world of Pokemon; keep things the same. I think Weak Armor is the better ability to keep for all three pre-evos, so maybe variation on No Guard. If I had my way, we'd use the same abilities for all three mons. If that isn't possible, then at least keep the abilities consistent for the two pre-evos. Please don't make these abilities a complicated mess. It looks so ugly and serves little purpose.

[srk1214]

I'm with Birkal. Same for all three is certainly an option. My proposal above kept the 2 prevos consistent. Changing at every step along the way (except Illusion) is definitely overthinking it.

[akela]

Because this is flavor based instead of competitive based, I feel as though Aurumoth's abilities are not fitting for a first stage and 2nd stage pokemon. If there was only 1 prevo for aurumoth, my opinion would be a bit different.

Looking at the art thread, a number of the images imply a worm -> armored thing -> Aurumoth. Going by those images, Weak Armor/No Guard/Illusion do not fit with them. I feel it would be an injustice to make these mons little more than Aurumoth with lower stats and smaller movepool.

Going against what I said earlier, I propose:
Stage 1: Weak Armor/Wonder Skin/Illusion
Stage 2: Weak Armor/Shed Skin/Illusion

This maintains what others have said about Weak Armor being the best ability for flavor and keeps the event illusion. Wonder Skin is a defensive ability. Tying into it being the first stage, it does not make sense to me that all of its moves would have perfect accuracy. Instead, there would be more focus on it surviving to evolve to stage 2 and stage 3. Likewise, Shed Skin is a defensive ability. There is less focus on avoiding those secondary effects and more focus on getting rid of nasty status effects. Showing an understanding that it cannot worry only about avoiding its problems. It needs to deal with them. In the end, with Aurumoth, it takes on an offensive perspective, having seen and felt that the problems will not go away until you deal with the root of them.

You might not agree with this, but these prevos are flavor mons. This is flavor.

[Meganium Sulfate]

Since these abilities are purely flavor, and it will never be possible to use them in battle, why not Wonder Guard? Wonder Guard could not be more perfectly suited to Aurumoth's prevos. Shedinja already gives it Bug-type implications and precedence.

From a flavor standpoint, think of Wonder Guard as the parent Aurumoth protecting its children with powerful illusionary defenses. It is not until the larva grows to become an Aurumoth that it can protect itself with illusions of its own. These are psychic shields formed from gold; such guards would be quite wondrous, would they not?

Thus, I am in favor of having Wonder Guard replace Illusion for the prevos, and keeping the other abilities the same. After all, we would expect such younger pokemon to be weak (Weak Armor) and defenseless (No Guard), but we wouldn't expect them to have all of their powers of illusionary psionics until they are fully mature.

EDIT: Another way of thinking about it is that those born without close ties to their parents have No Guard, but those with them have Wonder Guard.

[Nyktos]

I really, really don't like the idea of Weak Armor turning into not-Weak Armor while another ability turns into Weak Armor. Feels too "cute" and as far as I know it's unprecedented.

[Deck Knight]

If the changing abilities thing is too much a problem, changing Forewarn to No Guard as a kind of extreme change also works, if that makes better sense.