CAP 5 - Concept Submissions

[GlassAbsol]

To Meganium Sulfate.

I don't usually respond, or post in threads like these because I don't feel qualified enough to offer any actual advice, however I tend to see concepts like yours crop up every now and again and the truth is, they are simply not viable. Why? Because, they are simply bait for set up. A pokemon that can't attack, but is useful, is a utility pokemon. Usually armed with taunt so they are not set up bait. However, a pokemon that just sits there and infuriates the opponent by being indestructible is not much of a concept for a pokemon. I know we have whimsicott which absolutely infuriates people by being unable to break, but it does this while using leech seed, and therefore damaging the opponent. If you're going for ultimate defensive pokemon, we've got Chansey/Blissey or steelix etc, but they all attack.

A pokemon that inflicts no damage on the opponent, just allows the opponent to generate their own momentum. Also, you're questions are basically asking us, how much can we do to overpower this until no pokemon can defeat it. Not great for optics either.

I think some of the other concepts are brilliant with JC104's standing out in particular. Looking forward to voting :)

[Paradox]

Name: Scout
General Description: A Pokémon designed to get information about the opposing team as quickly and effectively as possible.
Justification: Honestly I'm surprised we haven't done this one already. IMO hands down the biggest change from DPP to BW, perhaps the biggest change ever in the game was team preview. Information is often the most important part of strategy in games, but how we get it has drastically changed with team preview.
Questions To Be Answered:

• How valuable is gaining and protecting information in the current metagame?
• How important is it to utilise pokemon that can fulfill different roles depending on stats/moveset/etc, and how can scouting these things early in the game give a player an advantage?
• What value does a Pokemon specializing in scouting have in the team preview metagame?
• Is scouting a playstyle or a pokemon? i.e. what is more important in scouting – the tools you have (moves, items, etc) or how you switch/attack/predict/etc? (I guess this would have to be answered in assessment so we can decide if we should create a mon with specific tools or one that gels smoothly with a scouting playstyle by indirectly forcing opponents to reveal things)

Explanation: Hi CAP, it's been a while. I've always thought that the coolest part about CAP was talking in-depth about the nature of the metagame. In that sense I think discussing the importance of the information battle in a match would be really interesting and help us think about a part of the game that doesn't see much of the forefront (honestly, I was getting pretty sick of talking about weather, offense vs stall, which type is best/worst, etc). This is meant to be in the thread of (my favourite) concepts like Utility Counter, Momentum, etc. They generated a lot of really interesting discussion, and the CAP was more about the process then the end result (not that either of those end results were too shabby).

In terms of the mon itself, there's lots of abilities, moves (Protect, Trick, etc) and other techniques that can be used to learn more about your opponents pokemon. I'm sure that there are many more that I've never thought of – ideally we could get input from some top players to learn more about scouting, which I figure is a pretty high-end skill. And yes, I know Kitsunoh was a scout but I think the scouting game has changed more than enough with team preview to warrant a fresh look.

P.S. I haven't been around for some time and haven't played the BW2 meta too much so if you have any suggestions/comments I'd love to hear them.

[jas61292]

Why don't we see if I can get through the rest?

JEFLIV's Versatile and Shielded: While I understand the desire to make a Pokemon that fits a certain mold, doing something like this is not really what the CAP project is about. We are looking more for something that can guide the community in making something that teaches us about the game than something that is simply the guide to making a specific Pokemon. I suggest you look back at the rules in the OP to get a better idea of what I mean.

Lster728's The Mixed Marauder: Well, first off, having specifications of stat bias in the general description is something we generally want to avoid, since it dictates too much of the process before the discussions even begin. That being said, I do think the idea of what makes mixed sweepers work may be worth exploring. One of the phenomenon in Pokemon that I find most interesting is that some Pokemon with good mixed attacking stats (such as Lucario or gen 4 CAP 1 Syclant) are only usually found attacking from a single side of the spectrum, and in these specific cases, the side with their lower offensive stat. Investigating what truly makes both sides viable and how to achieve this without making one side clearly superior could be very interesting. I would however suggest that you focus you questions a bit more. While they do address some important matters, I think you need to also get more into what exactly we can learn from it.

WhiteDMist's Pascifistic Stall: Honestly, I can't remember seeing a concept like this before, and that really surprises me, since there is a lot of good stuff going on here. While stall is often brought up, the specifics of PP stalling are not something we have ever taken the time to look at in depth. I like this concept because it is at the same time very focused in goals, but very wide open in how we can execute it. While the lack of a Pokemon like what we may make in OU may mean that the specific PP stall info we gain might not be the most transferable, I think this concept has the potential to teach us some about win conditions and the difference between heavy dedication and versatility that would be useful throughout the game of competitive Pokemon.

CabooseFTW's Arghonaut 2.0: Of all the ways people have gone about trying to "fix" the meta, I think this is one of the more interesting. The fact is, the playstyles that exist are far to large for a single Pokemon to take on, but looking simply at 5 individual Pokemon and how to stop them is a much more viable concept. The original Arghonaut was designed with decentralizing the metagame in mind, but after having done the project, we discovered that it didn't decentralize it, but simply recentralized it. Pokemon is always bound to be a centralized game, but it is certainly possible to mix up what it is centralized around. I will say that I think you need a bit more focus in the concept though. Right now it seems mostly about simply changing things for the sake of changing them, and I'd like to see a bit more on what exactly we can learn from doing it.

DetroitLolcat's Lets (Not) Get Physical!: Let me start off by saying that this concept immediately caught my eye with its mention of "thoroughly explore the Physical/Special split of Pokemon that occurred in Gen IV." While this is something everyone takes into account every time they play the game, I don't think anyone has ever really taken an in depth look at it. That being said, I feel the concept is both at the same time too free and too restricting. On the one hand, as long as we can wall the physical threats, the rest doesn't matter. While I don't mind freedom, I do like focus, and the lack thereof can turn certain stages into more of a "what's cool" discussion, rather than one about anything worth learning. At the same time though, countering all the top physical threats is something so restrictive, I am not sure it is even possible. As you said, those things that used to be able to do it simply can't any more, and I have a hard time believing that if they can't that anything can. I mean, sure, we could just make Skarmory v2 with base 120 HP, but I don't see us learning that much from it.

Birkal's Cripple Drizzle: Oh man.... this one is going to take a bit more of a response than most. Hmm... how to begin? Well, let me start off in a general sense about weather. Obviously, this is not the first weather concept to come up. Many have been presented already, and much of my responses to them have been about scope, viability, and the value of the info from the result. The ones that I have responded the most positively to have been the ones with more limited scopes, ones that seem possible to pull off, and ones that would give us valuable data that is transferable to OU. On the other hand, the ones to which I suggested major changes be made have generally been ones that I feel try and do too much, attempt things no one reasonable Pokemon (or just no one Pokemon, period) could hope to do, or simply try and change things about weather solely for the sake of changing them. With all that said, I feel that this concept has crippling fundamental flaws that make it fall more towards the latter group of concepts than the former. Now, let's be frank: what you said about Drizzle being the top question of the day is no doubt true. However, I can't see how the Create-A-Pokemon project can really help address this issue in such a direct manner and still hope to get valuable information out of it.

As I have been saying to nearly every person here, I think the key is in the questions, and so that is where I am going to go into the most detail. As I already said, I think the concept has major fundamental flaws, and one of the biggest is made incredibly clear from the first question. "What is the BW2 metagame like without Drizzle?" Many concepts have already suggested trying to "counter" weather, and to all of them I responded by saying they were not feasible. This right here is the mother of them all. This concept is not simply asking to counter rain (which is already a near impossible task for a single Pokemon), but the learning goals it sets in place are dependent, not only on countering Drizzle, but making it a non-factor in the metagame. Honestly, I would consider the very notion of this being possible to be ludicrous. Subtraction by addition simply doesn't work in that sense.

The other question that highly concerns me is the last one. Suppose for a minute that this was possible to do; that we created a Pokemon that not only countered rain, but flat out took it from the metagame. Is that Pokemon broken? Well, even assuming that it was somehow made so that it was not a major threat to non-drizzle teams, and in a non-drizzle meta would not be considered broken, what will our actual assessment be? Well, if you want drizzle gone, then either it is perfectly fine or it being broken clearly means drizzle is broken. If you don't, then the project will either simply have failed at some point along the way, or our Pokemon will be broken and we are clearly all fools for thinking that you can counter any playstyle with a single Pokemon. In any situation, even in a such a perfect one as this, the success or failure of the project comes down mostly to confirmation bias.

Basically, to summarize my thoughts on this concept, it tries to do too much, while lacking the potential for much benefit. I highly doubt that this concept is even possible to do, I don't think that doing it would help convince people one way or the other, and the lack of realism in the metagame it would create would make the little info we could gain from it hardly transferable back to OU. While I have been trying to make suggestions to each person on how to improve the concept, most of these have been general ways to make a good concept (tailored to the specifics) that I know you already know how to do. The problems I have here run very deep, and it would likely take a significant overhaul to make this something that I would consider worth pursuing. If I am to suggest one specific thing though, it would be to try and make the concept more realistic to complete. As I said, subtraction by addition simply won't work, and as such, any Drizzle, or weather in general, concept needs to focus more on what we can learn from reducing "problems" and not about trying to eliminate anything completely.

Lol cakes's Sweeper Spook: The biggest problem I have here is that I find it hard to believe the move is going to ever be worth using if it is not currently. Look at the Pokemon who learn Psych Up. It is a massive list. Yet, not a single Pokemon there uses the move frequently. Why? Well, you could Psych Up to gain that Salamence's Moxie Atk boost, but then what is it doing? Hitting you with Outrage. Well, what about on set up? If you are slower than Volcarona, you could Psych Up after it boosts to stay on level with it? But in that case it is just an inferior Snatch. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure there could be a gimmicky use for it somewhere, but I don't seeing that being a great focus for a concept. If you want this concept to go somewhere, I would suggest looking more into the explanation part, specifically with a couple of sample ways in which this could actually be viable, because right now, I can't see it.

Meganium Sulfate's Labyrinth Wall: Well, this is another wall based concept, similar to ganj4lf's, but with a slightly different spin. Rather than a lack of support, this has a lack of offense. This could definitely be interesting, but I'd like to have more of a goal in mind. I would suggest adding more, especially to the questions, on what we will be looking to learn from this. As I said at the start of the thread, concepts that are simply "let's do it and see what we learn" are not the kind I am really looking for.

SlimMan's Substitute Abuse: I remember either last CAP or the one before someone submitted a substitute related concept that I really liked. While the approach here is different (the old one was about beating sub users), I think this has a lot of the same upsides. In my mind, Substitute is one of, if not the single, most important move in competitive Pokemon. It has so many different effect and so many different ways to use it, but at the same time is not a wholly positive move. While a lot of concepts have been focusing on the issues of the day, this here focuses on the issue of every single day. There is a ton to learn about this move, and this is a very well formulated concept that could help teach us a lot.

Paradox's Scout: As you say, Kitsunoh was a scout, but the scouting game has changed so drastically since Kit was made that what is necessary to be one is very different. This is honestly a very different approach to things that I have never really thought about and I do think it could be worth pursuing. Last gen, a lot of what scouting was involved figuring out the opponents team. This gen, that is no longer an issue. Team preview means that you know exactly what you are facing going in. This leaves scouting in a very different position of being about finding out movesets and EVs and the like. It is definitely an infrequently looked at concept that would be fun to explore. That being said, I would like to see some more detail as far as specific goals. Your questions are a good start, but I think you can get a bit more specific as to what we want to learn about from it.


Well, that should bring me up to present. I'll be looking back over and commenting on changes people have made later in the day.

[psykokitty]

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

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

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.

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.

[Midnight]

Hey All,Long time reader of Smogon and especially the CAP forums, wanted to try my hand at one of these.

Name: Tricky Cloud/Breeze

Description: A defensive pokemon that has access to the move Trick as well as a defensive build but decent speed to be used as a momentum switcher and crippler, access to Cloud Nine/Air Lock allows it to cripple weather teams.

Justification: Today's metagame is very offensive orientated and the stats of these show that weather and power are definately king. The idea of the Tricky Cloud is someone who has the ability, due to it's speed and bulk, to actually switch momentum quickly by effectively soaking and crippling the opponents main powerhouses, shutting down the potential sweep. This takes care of crippling the power plays and Cloud Nine/Air Lock from shutting down the Omni-potent weather wars.

Questions To Be Answered:

• How do you balance a pokemon with Cloud Nine/Air Lock and the ability to cripple powerhouses from an attacking front without it being set up fodder?
• How do we allow the Pokemon to recover damage without making it become too powerful?
• What is required for a Pokemon to abuse Trick well?
• With the limitations of a single Pokemon (one ability, one typing, etc.), is it possible to create a viable set for the each of the many uses of Trick and Cloud Nine/Air Lock with coverage?
• With the pokemon being quite bulky do we mean that it suffers on attacking statistics and therefore, Tricking a Choice Item with a Choice Item effectively ruin the whol emomentum?
• With the current users of Trick, does it's effectiveness come from the little risk that comes with it (due to the Pokemon being able to use the item anyway?) or with the benefit of potentially crippling something?

Explanation: You see a few Pokmeon running the old Trick Items play and when it cripples your Pokemon, it does make a difference. The problem is though, you have neutralised a threat on a team, and generally these Pokemon which use the Trick method then don't have the opportunity to fully capitalise on the free switch in that then happens to create a complete shift in momentum.

The point of this is the give the player using this Pokemon a way to actually combat two problems the Meta game faces at once while maybe not being able to effectively complete dominate the field. I think this could poetntially lead into a Pokemon that can fit onto a team as a Pivot-point pokemon to maintain the momentum shift when it arrives, too even being a stall pokemon itself, being able to do a form of stall set-up (Leech Seed, etc) to even using the Trick opportunity to help the team out, possibly through Wish Passing.

With more access to a supporting role on a team, doing roles well but not specialising and taking the light of any particular pokemon who alrready does a job well, it allows the CAP to maintain and run several "support" movepools from an offensive crippler (Maybe a Parashuffler of sorts with Leech Seed) to a more Supportive Movepool with things like Wish.

Trick would be the staple and it helps us also show the different ways different teams can capitalise and use a sudden shift in momentum caused through a free turn and the different ways different teams can hugely benefit. Whether it be setting up to stall or healing up an already weakened ally.

The thing about this CAP is that that the mon itself is a counter to an ability and an effect pivot point/stall Pokemon more than a straight out answer to the threats that are part of rain, sun, sand or Hail. It can slow down and weaken the Swift Swimmers and Chlorophyll abusers but can it actually kill them/completely wall them? Unknown, depends on type and movepool of the CAP ultimately and allows us to balance. It's not a destroyer of Weather, but a slow down of the match where that weather is being abused. Use it wrong, it isn't a counter anymore.

[nyttyn]

To Hell With [Weather Concepts]!

We should cut it out with the weather combating/eliminating concepts, in my opinion. They're all far too ambitious, because you simply cannot tackle even one weather with a remotely balanced, singular pokemon. Especially without custom abilities, which we just recently banned. That aside, what could we possibly learn from a pokemon that destroys weather teams? "Oh hey this pokemon is really good at smashing weather?"

This is not to say that a pokemon we make cannot be good at taking on threats found under Rain, Sun, Sand, or Hail teams. It however cannot feasibly be the concept, as by its very definition, it will have to be good enough to singlehandedly kill entire play-styles, which is the definiton of overpowered.

And before anyone brings up something stupid like "Swift Swimmer!," every single viable swift swimmer is easily handled by rain. And once again you're just tailoring a pokemon to take on a specific type of team - unless it's far too good, it'll inevitably fail, and be a complete waste of time and space. No one threat can possibly be good enough to singlehandedly discourage even one type of weather.

I'm beginning to suspect that you all just want to make a anti-weather pokemon just because "fuk weather lol." No one pokemon is going to singlehandedly remove any weather as a factor without being over-centralizing to an absolutely insane extent, and trying to persist with this doomed charade even in light of that fact means you're critically misunderstanding our mission. We're not here to make your dream pokemon, and we're not here to create a new metgame. We're here to explore the current metagame, and how introducing a new, extra pokemon shakes things up. Attempting to make a fairytale new one by giving a single pokemon the impossible task of eliminating an entire archtype as a factor is very much NOT that.


"The Create-A-Pokémon project is a community dedicated to exploring and understanding the competitive Pokémon metagame by designing, creating, and playtesting new Pokémon concepts."

[Korski]

While I don't share nyttyn's attitude towards weather concepts as a whole, I agree with him that many of the concepts proposed in this thread (both weather-related and non-weather-related) are going about this Project the wrong way, specifically by trying to work backwards from an end result and by designating the end result as something foreign to current OU players. This method of "make a Pokemon that all on its own causes the metagame to dramatically change" is overly ambitious at best, and something along the lines of what nyttyn posted at worst. We would need to create a stupidly overcentralizing Pokemon in order to "save stall" or "kill weather"; we've gotten a taste of this before with the Decentralizer concept (Arghonaut), in that it recentralized the metagame around itself instead of creating a more diverse metagame by checking top threats.

I would suggest to those trying to come up with new and interesting concepts to keep in mind that we are trying to explore the current metagame, not create a new one. A single Pokemon can only do so much when tossed into the gen. V metagame, so let's use the nuanced scope of this process to maximize our capacity to learn about what's already out there, not what we'd prefer to "fix" about the metagame.

[ginganinja]

We should cut it out with the weather combating/eliminating concepts, in my opinion. They're all far too ambitious, because you simply cannot tackle even one weather with a remotely balanced, singular pokemon. Especially without custom abilities, which we just recently banned. That aside, what could we possibly learn from a pokemon that destroys weather teams? "Oh hey this pokemon is really good at smashing weather?"

How about, what would a metagame without Rain / Hail / Sun / Sand / Auto Weather look like? This was just off the top of my head, I assume the other weather concepts have provided their own questions to answer.

And before anyone brings up something stupid like "Swift Swimmer!," every single viable swift swimmer is easily handled by rain.

This is incorrect. Specs Kingdra is one of the most terrifying pokemon a rain team can face, and if you read the general metagame discussion threads, or were aware or some of the ladder teams that certain top players use (for example HO with Deoxys-D + Specs Kingdra was very threatening), you would be already aware of this. Sure, a rain team has Ferrothorn, but its not hard to overload it, or just push past it as iirc, Ferrothorn can only switch into a Specs Kingdra once, next time it comes in, it faces being 2KOed by Hydro Pump. Trust me, a well played Kingdra can and does maul a Rain team, and its very, very hard to handle.

We're here to explore the current metagame, and how introducing a new, extra pokemon shakes things up.

Are you not aware that weather IS the current metagame? This is part of why there have been so many weather concepts, because BW2 OU is a weather metagame, and yes, many people are sick of it. Its not impossible to create a pokemon that can handle a weather (id agree that creating a pokemon to handle all 4 weather is 2 much) nor does said pokemon need to be overpowered. Ferrothorn, Gastrodon and Jellicent can all be frustrating to rain teams, as well as pokemon such as Thundurus-T. None of the above are "overpowered" and yes, they can be beaten by a good rain team. However these pokemon, like Heatran (or Rotom-H I guess) vs Sun teams, do an excellent job at handling certain weather teams, and while they don't 100% counter the weather / playstyle, they do make it easier to handle which is a good thing.

I am not denying that weather concepts have their problems, nor that it would be easy to create a CAP based on the above concept. However, I think ignoring what the actual OU metagame IS, with relation to concept choice, is something to be avoided. Personally, I prefer concepts that address the recent problems discussed in OU, namely weather and hazards. I think it would be interesting to see how CAP addresses these problems.

my 2 cents

[jynx KB]

Name: Bring Something Back
General Description: An experiment to see if something can be introduced that brings back a banned element into OU without becoming broken itself.
Justification: More complex banns are being introduced with single elements of a pokemon being singled out. In order to keep as many elements as possible, can something new be introduced as a countermeasure making the metagame itself balanced?
Questions To Be Answered:

Is one element in itself worth banning an entire pokemon?
What elements of a pokemon make something too strong in a metagame compared to the whole?
What can exist as a counter option, and can lesser used options have viability?
Are there elements that truly CANNOT exist in an OU metagame despite possible counter tactics?
Can it truly take a single pokemon to counter a strategy, or do there need to be multiple checks in existence?

Explanation: Gen five has had an interesting history when it comes to the banning to Ubers. Blaziken and Exadrill, not really even Psudo Legendarys were sent to the upper tiers. What is and is not broken in the metagame, IS the metagame, so it would be interesting to explore what elements truly make a Pokemon too powerful for the lower tiers. At the same time, it would be a great experiment so see if we can do this to an OU pokemon. It also gives wonderful insight into counters, is an ability or stat too powerful, or are there other options. Not only would it potentially bring some options back to the metagame, but we would learn so much. Specifically, this would allow more precedent and research into what takes a pokemon over the edge into Ubers, valuable information when forming and evaluating potential complex bans

Ok, wording issues aside, I'll just put the sentence in black and white. Create some kind of counter pokemon to a specific (or even general) element of Ubers that, if successful, could allow said target to be played in an OU environment without either one taking over.

Will resubmit if anyone has ideas on specific clarifications or wording. I admit I'm not good at getting my thoughts clear onto paper.

Edit: More questions and slightly fleshed out reasoning, but still looking for potential suggestions

[Birkal*]

Well, I've gotten a massive amount of feedback on my concept submission, so I'd like to address some of that at this time. Some of it has been positive but some of it has been negative. Regardless, there's no such thing as bad press, eh ;)?

Also, I should note that I've made a bunch of tweaks to my concept. It was never my intention to completely demolish Drizzle from Overused as if it was banned. Rather, I would like to aim more at removing it as the dominant playstyle in Overused. I've changed some of my wording (including the title) to reflect that idea.

Originally Posted by Fat jc104

So would it not seem reasonable to give perhaps a third of our attention to the other weather conditions?

I don't think that your concept is unreasonable, but I do worry about splitting our focus up as to incorporate five different weather playstyles (all of which have multiple playstyles in themselves). CAP has often been described as a laboratory, and in science, the fewer variables you have affecting your experiment, the better the results. Focusing on Drizzle and the rest of the metagame gives an optimal amount of two variables gives us a lot more focus than five.

Also, I worry that we would go wildly overboard with your concept, as far as balance is concerned. I would worry that we'd end up with a rampant sun metagame, which sounds to me much worse than a rain-based one. I think rain is actually the easiest weather to target by far; aldaron's proposal is a major, major weakness which for other weathers there is no parallel. Imagine if we had a kingdra that could break through the likes of ferrothorn (e.g maybe a poliwrath with better stats and a decent fighting move. EDIT: or even a keldeo with swift swim as its only ability...). Rain also has a very strong tendecy to spam water moves, which are easily resisted, and for which there are several abilties that grant immunity. I don't think crippling rain proposes enough of a challenge, unless we deliberately forbid ourselves some of the easier options.

Note that I've made some changes to my concept to accommodate for this, so thank you for the feedback. I now have made it clear that I only wish to nerf Drizzle, not remove it entirely. In doing so, I think the "guaranteed" rise in Sun Offense is much less certain, since Drizzle can typically still serve as a hard stop to those teams. It's also interesting to note that you consider my concept not challenging, when others like jas61292 consider it nigh impossible. I think this says something about how vital the concept assessment stage is after voting; we all need to make sure we're on the same page when we have chosen our concept.

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

On the other hand, the ones to which I suggested major changes be made have generally been ones that I feel try and do too much, attempt things no one reasonable Pokemon (or just no one Pokemon, period) could hope to do, or simply try and change things about weather solely for the sake of changing them. With all that said, I feel that this concept has crippling fundamental flaws that make it fall more towards the latter group of concepts than the former. Now, let's be frank: what you said about Drizzle being the top question of the day is no doubt true. However, I can't see how the Create-A-Pokemon project can really help address this issue in such a direct manner and still hope to get valuable information out of it.

Like I've mentioned above, I've made amendments to the concept to the concept to make it more reasonable. I'm not suggesting the extinction of Drizzle but rather, the nerfing of it. I think you would agree that this is not only quite possible to do, but also further within the realm of possibilities than some other concepts. I think that you'll also find that by only dethroning Drizzle, there is much to be learned in both the creation period and the playtest period. The former will help us better identify Drizzle teams, develop practical strategies that can be employed against them, and other Pokemon that can do incredible work once rain is better fought against. That previous sentence is referring to the Overused metagame, mind you, not the playtest. The correlation I'm trying to make is that we can, as CAP, help inform users about Drizzle and how to best stop it from wrecking their teams. And once they've mastered that, which other strategies can work well.

I think the concept has major fundamental flaws, and one of the biggest is made incredibly clear from the first question. "What is the BW2 metagame like without Drizzle?" Many concepts have already suggested trying to "counter" weather, and to all of them I responded by saying they were not feasible. This right here is the mother of them all. This concept is not simply asking to counter rain (which is already a near impossible task for a single Pokemon), but the learning goals it sets in place are dependent, not only on countering Drizzle, but making it a non-factor in the metagame.

I've made changes in the concept to better accommodate this; thank you for the suggestion. The goal is to counter rain, not completely stomp it out. Furthermore, I would agree with you that one, single Pokemon itself cannot counter rain. That's where I think we could get creative in making a Pokemon that also supports other Pokemon that fight against Drizzle. If you can make an effective core (a few existing Pokemon + a CAP), it can be pretty easy to nerf a playstyle, even one as gigantic as Drizzle-based teams.

The other question that highly concerns me is the last one.

I've removed it entirely. Again, thanks for the feedback here.

Originally Posted by Fat Korski

We would need to create a stupidly overcentralizing Pokemon in order to "save stall" or "kill weather"; we've gotten a taste of this before with the Decentralizer concept (Arghonaut), in that it recentralized the metagame around itself instead of creating a more diverse metagame by checking top threats.

Almost every CAP is centralizing in the playtest ladder; I'm positive that Mollux would not have seen the kind of usage it saw during the CAP3 Playtest ladder in the typical Overused metagame. People centralize around CAPs during the playtest because they want to use that new Pokemon. I also don't buy the assertion that diminishing rain won't make room for a more diverse metagame; people specifically avoid using Pokemon that don't do well in the rain, and their usage suffers from that. Just something to consider.

[Chou Toshio]

Hope I'm not too late to the party. In any case, here's my take on the anti-weather concept.
(Also, because Birkal said to say so-- I play a lot of OU)

Name: Rain on Everyone's Parade (aka Castform 2.0/Kingdra 2.0)
General Description: A Pokemon that makes every weather a liability; like Kingdra against rain but for all weathers. Unlike Kingdra, the goal would be to accomplish this WITHOUT weather abuse (and an artificial SS ban), but by simply having sheer advantage against weather teams.
Justification: I see weather as a key factor of BW. You can't eliminate weather and still have a truly representative BW metagame-- this is why we try so hard to not ban drizzle, and why I don't want a trapper to answer weather. Kingdra adds a great and unique aspect to the game by giving Rain, the strongest weather, a huge liability. The problem with Kingdra though, is that it has no way of beating Ferrothorn (a universal rain member), and doesn't leverage nearly as much advantage against Sun or Sand. The goal would be to make a Pokemon that makes players have to think twice about using ANY weather, but doesn't itself abuse weather (so it wouldn't be used to abuse weather).
Questions To Be Answered:
-How can a Pokemon single-handedly make a weather type a liability?
-Can it do this WITHOUT an artificially imposed ruling (SS Kingdra not on Rain teams)
-Can it do this WITHOUT relying on abusing weather itself?
-Can we make a single Poke that crushes weather teams?
-Can weather even be made to be a liability?

Explanation: I think this would be a huge challenge for CAP. The above goal described would be incredibly challenging to achieve with a single Poke. I'm not even sure it can be done. My personal recommendation would be to think of this as a Castform 2.0 project, and I'd actually like to see a Poke that does the above, not by abuse, but by having weather-triggered formes that have overwhelming advantage against typical members of said weather team. Assuming its ability allows the transformations, it would mean designing forms that can beat weather teams based on advantage of typing, movepool, and stats alone (a great endeavor in and of itself). That said, I'm not trying to box in the need for a certain type of ability or function-- so if others can come up with another means of achieving the above without form transformation, I'd be all ears. Just emphasize the goals to: (1) make weather a liability (2) do it without abusing weather (ie. truly anti-weather, and not being abusable by weather teams). But seriously, castform 2.0 that actually functioned well would be awesome.

[nyttyn]

Originally Posted by Fat ginganinja

How about, what would a metagame without Rain / Hail / Sun / Sand / Auto Weather look like? This was just off the top of my head, I assume the other weather concepts have provided their own questions to answer.

Given what a huge and influential part of the metagame auto weather is, we'd just be making a new metagame by the time we elminate them. And that's pretty impossible to achieve with one pokemon even if we we wanted to.

This is incorrect. Specs Kingdra is one of the most terrifying pokemon a rain team can face, and if you read the general metagame discussion threads, or were aware or some of the ladder teams that certain top players use (for example HO with Deoxys-D + Specs Kingdra was very threatening), you would be already aware of this. Sure, a rain team has Ferrothorn, but its not hard to overload it, or just push past it as iirc, Ferrothorn can only switch into a Specs Kingdra once, next time it comes in, it faces being 2KOed by Hydro Pump. Trust me, a well played Kingdra can and does maul a Rain team, and its very, very hard to handle.

I did overlook SPecs Kingdra, and it's a pretty cool mon for HO Deo-D as I mentioned.

Are you not aware that weather IS the current metagame? This is part of why there have been so many weather concepts, because BW2 OU is a weather metagame, and yes, many people are sick of it. Its not impossible to create a pokemon that can handle a weather (id agree that creating a pokemon to handle all 4 weather is 2 much) nor does said pokemon need to be overpowered. Ferrothorn, Gastrodon and Jellicent can all be frustrating to rain teams, as well as pokemon such as Thundurus-T. None of the above are "overpowered" and yes, they can be beaten by a good rain team. However these pokemon, like Heatran (or Rotom-H I guess) vs Sun teams, do an excellent job at handling certain weather teams, and while they don't 100% counter the weather / playstyle, they do make it easier to handle which is a good thing.

Yes, I am aware that the current metagame is mostly weather-based, which is why I said that a concept that combats weather so much as to cripple it would be creating a fantasy fairytale metagame - because a metagame without auto-weather would be so drastically different it would verge on the absurd. And yeah, Ferrothorn, Gastrodon, and Jellicent can be frustrating, but they are far from "crippling." Ferrothorn which exists on p much every rain team ever can handle Gastrodon and sometimes Cent if it gets lucky, Keldeo can kind of handle Ferrothron, and eventually the spiked menace will be worn down due to relying on leech seed/leftovers for recovery even if the rain team lacks a very solid answer, and Jellicent suffers from Latias using it as total setup bait as well as powerful thunder attacks that Rain typically throws around.

Not to say that these pokemon aren't useful for taking on Rain (except Gastrodon who is a sack of shit), but Rain does have answers to them, and they're far from crippling.

I am not denying that weather concepts have their problems, nor that it would be easy to create a CAP based on the above concept. However, I think ignoring what the actual OU metagame IS, with relation to concept choice, is something to be avoided. Personally, I prefer concepts that address the recent problems discussed in OU, namely weather and hazards. I think it would be interesting to see how CAP addresses these problems.

my 2 cents

At the very least I agree with you that it would be nice to address the problems we've recently been discussing in OU, but I don't think trying to eliminate or cripple them with a single pokemon is the answer here. I also seriously doubt that we can fulfill all of these questions that we have adequately with a single CAPmon.

my 2 cents on your 2 cents

[Eggbert]

Most of what I said to the last concept applies here. A Pokemon that alone counters weather is highly unrealistic and likely overpowered, if possible at all. I would suggest trying to focus on a more specific aspect of weather and making the concept centered on stopping that than simply "weather" was a whole.

The rules are against posting specifics in the concept, but it would be easy for a dragon type with cloud nine to check Venusaur, Victini, Politoed, Keldeo, ect with enough bulk. Think altaria with improved stats and typing.

[Infernis]

I don't believe it to be impossible to make a decent weather-related concept for this thread. It would be an enormous letdown if CAP went the entirety of BW and BW2 without making a single attempt to curb the dominance of weather and thereby reveal what it takes to fight against the dominant force of the metagame. It would be as if nobody bothered to slap a Kyogre counter on their Ubers teams. (That example might be too literal, but you surely get the point.)

That said, I'm modifying my previous submission to take note of some commentary. It will also be modified in the original post on the third page.

Originally Posted by Fat Infernis

Name: Ultimate Weather Defuser

General Description: A Pokemon that can control the weather and shift momentum away from an opposing weather team without simply becoming another tool for extant weather teams to continue their dominance.

Justification: The entire metagame has shifted to weather wars, particularly due to Drizzle Politoed, and also to a lesser extent Ninetales. A team that doesn't take advantage of weather has a hard time facing one that does.

Questions To Be Answered:

• How does one make a weather limiter that doesn't help current rain/sun teams overmuch against their opposite weather?
• What sort of Pokemon fares well against the common themes and Pokemon of rain and sun teams? (e.g. stopping a sweeper like Venusaur or Kingdra.)
• Why are extant Cloud Nine users unable to perform their function in OU?

Explanation: I know we're not supposed to specify such things as 'when this Pokemon switches in, all weather is nullified' or 'this Pokemon should have (ability)', but in a metagame utterly dominated by rain and sun, it really would be handy to have something to keep the skies clear. There have been a couple other suggestions in this thread on the matter, and while this may be a similar suggestion, I believe the variations between them can lead to more creative discourse.

We currently have Golduck/Altaria/Lickilicky for Cloud Nine, but they're almost unusable in OU. Rayquaza and its Air Lock ability are locked into Ubers. "Ultimate Weather Abuser" was listed as a good idea, so "Ultimate Weather Defuser" sounds like a fun parallel. Once infinite weather starts, there only exist moves to change the weather, and asides from Cloud Nine, only abilities that change the weather. Stopping it entirely is uncommon. It gives the advantage to neither team, but could make certain Pokemon that fare poorly in the more common weather types more useable.

In order to permanently remove weather, a weather-causing move would have to be used, and the 5-turn counter run down. (Though Cloud Nine/Air Lock means that no effect is seen.) If this CAP wanted to do this, it would need to be good at walling the current rain/sun abusers and able to defeat the Drought/Drizzle starters. A Pokemon that can actually end weather, not just change it or suppress an opposing weather, isn't much good as a weather teammate. This Pokemon would have to last out the 5 turns of null weather in order to have any noticeable effect, and would thus have to be fairly bulky. Recovery would allow it to be used multiple times in the event of a backup weather starter on the enemy team.

The real challenge here is designing a Pokemon like this that should not be used on a standard rain or sun team. It should not be able to take advantage of the increased STABs of rain and sun, it should not be aided overmuch by the decreased damage of certain types in weather, and it shouldn't provide good synergy with the common types that abuse rain and sun. (Grass/Fire/Water) There's plenty of discussion to be had here, so I'll leave it at that.

[HiipFire]

Name: Anti-type advantage

General Description: In Pokémon one of the main attributes of a pokemon is its typing, but this pokemon takes a situation where it's in a type disadvantage and turns it into a type advantage to either take the enemy's attack or attack it for good damage.

Justification: A lot of the strategies currently rely on the pokemon's typing for resistances/STAB/weather effects, and these pokemon are usually very useful and extremely difficult to take down. But with this pokemon you can, if you play well around the pokemon, cripple it with great effect.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is this going to be used on weather teams only?

Explanation: Usually when you want to attack/defend against something better, you use either a stat boosting move or stuff like Tail Glow. But with this pokemon you can instead influence the effectiveness of types, so that maybe your enemy hits with a non-stab attack that will allow to survive or take better.

[plebeian]

I have a problem with all of these "permanently destroy weather" submissions. The anti-weather abilities just aren't viable. The best counter to weather is other weather; the worst thing that can happen to a rain team, for example, is perma-sun. Comparatively, a lack of weather isn't all that bad. A pokemon with cloud nine or air lock would have to be pretty ridiculously good in terms of stats/abilities/movepool to warrant use, and there would still be "weather wars" of sorts anyway.
As for trapping, weather teams have the strongest incentive to carry around trappers. A very reliable trapper would, if anything, probably increase the presence of weather in the metagame. Trapping would also reduce variety, as pretty much any weather team would want a viable trapper to take down opposing weather.
As for punishing opposing weather, it seems to me that plenty of pokemon already occupy these niches, i.e. kingdra, heatran. Making something else would be a bit redundant. I also highly doubt that there's any combination of ability, type, and moveset that can check all weather without being overpowered.
These are, from what I can tell, the most common ideas. I think most anti-weather submissions incorporate one of these, or are purposefully vague. It would probably be better to focus on equalizing weather. I like the idea of a hail abuser, for example, which is both more realistic and more interesting than ending weather.

[Bashfrog]

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

Bashfrog's Lord of Trash: Concepts like this run into problems because they want to make something good, but they are not really sure what or how. Fact is, most lesser used moves are lesser-used for a good reason. I mentioned this in an earlier post with regard to a concept about Imprison. Certain things just cannot shine, no matter how you do it. I'm not saying there are not moves out there that could work for this concept, but I do think you would need to find those moves and focus the concept on them rather than being so general.

I actually have the original concept, which is far more specific, written up, so I'll edit it. I'd ike you to please look at it again.

[Lol_cakes]

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

Why don't we see if I can get through the rest?



Lol cakes's Sweeper Spook: The biggest problem I have here is that I find it hard to believe the move is going to ever be worth using if it is not currently. Look at the Pokemon who learn Psych Up. It is a massive list. Yet, not a single Pokemon there uses the move frequently. Why? Well, you could Psych Up to gain that Salamence's Moxie Atk boost, but then what is it doing? Hitting you with Outrage. Well, what about on set up? If you are slower than Volcarona, you could Psych Up after it boosts to stay on level with it? But in that case it is just an inferior Snatch. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure there could be a gimmicky use for it somewhere, but I don't seeing that being a great focus for a concept. If you want this concept to go somewhere, I would suggest looking more into the explanation part, specifically with a couple of sample ways in which this could actually be viable, because right now, I can't see it.

I was trying to create ways without throwing my own ideas as this is a community project but since its not looking to hot right now I guess I can have more of a direct response, there are plenty of abilities where this could help this move Prankster and Unaware are just ones of the top of my head, even the right typing can decide what sweepers acquire the most boost and what tactics stop them the best. but yeah its hard to make a point when everyone isn't really about he gimmicky scene, but at least I put it out there better luck next time. If you really think about it, with the right stats, ability, stat distribution it could be successful but I thank you for you input. But I guess revolving around one move is very constricting and I can see where you could be offset.

[JEFLIV]

Am I allowed one more submission if the first one failed miserably?

[GlassAbsol]

You are allowed 1 submission, but you can edit your submission. I think at the moment though, unless you've got something spectacular and deeply thought out, I believe you should just modify the first one.

[JEFLIV]

Originally Posted by Fat JEFLIV

Name: Versatile and Shielded

General Description: A specially attacking versatile pokemon who has access to powerful moves but is frail HP-wise and needs recovery moves to work well. Should be genderless.

Justification: I often want a team member who can deal out real damage, but I know that it should have a flaw. I am open to suggestions that change this flaw. I think that it would have a niche in many teams.

Questions To Be Answered:
* Should it have a boosting Ability or a status one?
* Can it have powerful non-STAB moves?
* I want it to be genderless, but should it be?
* Should it have an item to abuse?

Explanation: I've always wanted a pokemon such as this, and I think that it would be an asset to many teams. Not as the centerpiece, but as support.

Edits: Maybe a CAP that relies only on resistances. It should have low defensive stats across the board but have a type such as DRG-RCK to resist most types. This will help us learn what stats mean versus typing, and it would be very fun to play if it had powerful attacks and med-high speed.

[Lol_cakes]

Here Are My Favorites-

iamdanielcruces Make Me Bad: This idea is really something interesting, we all know the effect the power creep took on the metagame, and the powerhouses that came with it. Personally I would love to see a CAP with generally lower stats or typing be something great. Making a Pokemon that is so anti-metagame speaks to me. I would really like to see a project like this. Personal Rating- 9.3/10

WebsterVanCooney I'm Firein' My Phazers!: I don't think we yet have a CAP that takes advantage of phasing, so I could see a lot coming from this. It speaks to me because phasing is truly a more reliable way to take out sweepers that have setup, and definitely not broken. Kinda makes me think that I should have suggested this instead of my own. Personal Rating- 8.7/10

heartsonfire Hazard Reversal: Kinda of generic, but definitely a big part of the metagame. Without a doubt this shows much potential that I don't even have to discuss, though the idea itself seems a little dry to me. As a community I believe this could be a good project for all of us regardless. Personal Rating- 7/10

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

Lster728 The Mixed Marauder: The lack of mixed sweepers is definitely something that kills me, especially when I what a good number of special and physical ones, without a doubt this one is pretty cool, but it feels very direct and boring so the end result could be a little lackluster for my taste. But the chance to kill something without even setting up is neat.
Personal Rating- 7.6/10

CabooseFTW Arghonaut 2.0: Practical, mostly due to my hate of Rotom-W I like you, and your idea would be very cool to see up there.
Personal Rating- 8.1/10

But to sum it up it seems like everyone mentioned something about Drizzle or a way to revive stall, those are cool too and both are big topics always so, but when I do CAP I want something interesting to satisfy my hipster ways lol, so if I didn't mention you for one of those that's my reasoning, the rest were either too vague, done before, or just too recycled.

[iamdanielcruces]

jas and Quanyails, thanks for the feedback!

I rather like Chou-san's idea of an all-purpose anti-weather mon. This concept, like the "hazard killer" and the Heart of Stall (this one... is brilliant), are extremely hard (if not outright impossible) to pull off, but that's probably the reason I like them. I'm rather new to the CAP process, but I think complex projects encourage argument, and that's a good thing for the community. Or, in Michaelangelo's words:

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."

Regarding my idea, it's rather abstract, so I don't think it has any chance of being selected. On the other hand, it explores aspects of Pokémon that go beyond our current generation and metagames. The CAP process is one of discovery and understanding (and, as I learned during the last one, quite polarizing), and each one of us wants to find something particular in it.

[Legend13]

(I really hope I'm not too late!)

Concept: Problem?

Description: An "annoyer" pokemon with multiple methods of denying sweeps and certain strategies, but too frail to afford any mistakes.

Justification: There are some strategies in OU which are nearly impossible to stop without suffering losses. A pokemon capable of shutting down these strategies would allow us to see how risky certain strategies are, if some have any true counters, and how effectively this pokemon can be incorporated into said strategies.

Questions to be answered:

• How easy is it to disrupt a strategy?
• Which pokemon become Relevant in order to counter this "Annoyer"?
• Which pokemon become viable with this "Annoyer's" assistance?
• What counter-measures would be used against this pokemon?
• Could strategies this pokemon is meant to counter incorporated?

Explanation: This pokemon can be a phaser, a taunter, a paraflincher, a trickster, or anything else that disrupts the opponent. Abilities like Prankster and Serene Grace bring out the best in this pokemon. Moves like taunt and thunder wave should be the kind of moves used. As a trade-off, no mistakes can be afforded with this pokemon; one misprediction, can get this pokemon KO'd, so it has to have some frailty.

[jas61292]

So there have been plenty of good concepts so far, and I know a lot of you have been fiddling around and trying to make them as good as possible. While I will hopefully be commenting on the new concepts and some of the changes people have made later on tonight, for now I just want to put out a 24 hour warning for this thread. If you have any more changes you want to make, or have an idea and have yet to submit a concept be sure to get it in before time runs out.