ginganinja
It's all coming back to me now
O.k, I am giving this a 24 Hour Warning.
Get any more remaining submissions in quickly, because I want to wrap things up. That said, Pwnemon and I had a quick chat, and so far these are some of the following abilities that I seem to enjoy
Static: Firstly, in general I agree that Iron Barbs / Rough Skin does risk being slightly anti concept since it can create situations where an enemy pokemon will attempt to suicide itself to prevent giving Gyarados a set up opportunity. That said, this doesn't apply to Static, which punishes people casually throwing out contact moves, by hopefully crippling them for Gyarados to sweep. The ability does have some downsides, as in general I don't believe its easy to paralyse the pokemon we actually want paralysed (faster revenge killers etc), but besides this, it seems to be an "ok" ability choice.
Water Absorb / Storm Drain: I shelved Dry Skin, simply because I think the core has enough issues with both forms of Charizard. Zard X can MEvo on a electric attack directed at its base form and DD (or just click EQ), while Zard Y can still carry the same move if it wishes, or rely on Drought boosted Fire Blast (and the sunlight destroying this CAPs health) to nuke past this CAP, while still having Solarbeam and sunlight reducing Gyarados's main STAB if it wants to take on the second member of the core. Its not even particularly safe for other partners instead of Gyarados, even Dragonite and opposing Zard X have to beware coming in on a Dragon Attack, especially if for whatever reason SR is up. This is why I greatly prefer Water Absorb and Storm Drain, because they retain the ability to switch into water moves and take no damage, while not opening ourselves up to pokemon that have a strong Fire STAB AND a secondly STAB move that hits Gyarados hard neutrally to discourage a free DD. I still fail to see any decent arguments against this ability, and its currently one of my favourite choices.
Sap Sipper: Yea, I am pretty sure this abilities just me, as it hasn't really received a lot of discussion, and would really love it if people discussed it, since I really want to decrease personal bias in slate creation, and reading other peoples opinions enables me to make a better slate. Anyway, I like Sap Sipper since it directly targets moves such as Spore / Sleep Powder / Leech Seed. Usually, I wouldn't care about Sleep moves (Gyarados has sub), but while this CAP resists grass attacks, Sleep Powder, Spore and Leech Seed are all very threatening "non attacking moves". In addition, the common abusers of these moves are slightly frustrating to Gyarados, with Breloom having Mach Punch to revenge a Gyarados that has Mega Evolved, and Ferrothorn having access to both Power Whip and Leech Seed to frustrate both CAP and Gyarados. Sap Sipper is much less of an abuse case when compared with, say, Magic Bounce, and it doesn't directly lock us into a physical direction (it does give us the ability to run a Physical set though if it wanted, or it could Baton Pass a Sap Sipper boost), so I kind of like it, but its hard to form a professional opinion so long as its just me talking about it.
Also note that I am still welcoming any and all future submissions. In the next 26 hour period you are not forced to only discuss my bolded abilities, I am just outlining my current thoughts on a small selection.
Get any more remaining submissions in quickly, because I want to wrap things up. That said, Pwnemon and I had a quick chat, and so far these are some of the following abilities that I seem to enjoy
Static: Firstly, in general I agree that Iron Barbs / Rough Skin does risk being slightly anti concept since it can create situations where an enemy pokemon will attempt to suicide itself to prevent giving Gyarados a set up opportunity. That said, this doesn't apply to Static, which punishes people casually throwing out contact moves, by hopefully crippling them for Gyarados to sweep. The ability does have some downsides, as in general I don't believe its easy to paralyse the pokemon we actually want paralysed (faster revenge killers etc), but besides this, it seems to be an "ok" ability choice.
Water Absorb / Storm Drain: I shelved Dry Skin, simply because I think the core has enough issues with both forms of Charizard. Zard X can MEvo on a electric attack directed at its base form and DD (or just click EQ), while Zard Y can still carry the same move if it wishes, or rely on Drought boosted Fire Blast (and the sunlight destroying this CAPs health) to nuke past this CAP, while still having Solarbeam and sunlight reducing Gyarados's main STAB if it wants to take on the second member of the core. Its not even particularly safe for other partners instead of Gyarados, even Dragonite and opposing Zard X have to beware coming in on a Dragon Attack, especially if for whatever reason SR is up. This is why I greatly prefer Water Absorb and Storm Drain, because they retain the ability to switch into water moves and take no damage, while not opening ourselves up to pokemon that have a strong Fire STAB AND a secondly STAB move that hits Gyarados hard neutrally to discourage a free DD. I still fail to see any decent arguments against this ability, and its currently one of my favourite choices.
Sap Sipper: Yea, I am pretty sure this abilities just me, as it hasn't really received a lot of discussion, and would really love it if people discussed it, since I really want to decrease personal bias in slate creation, and reading other peoples opinions enables me to make a better slate. Anyway, I like Sap Sipper since it directly targets moves such as Spore / Sleep Powder / Leech Seed. Usually, I wouldn't care about Sleep moves (Gyarados has sub), but while this CAP resists grass attacks, Sleep Powder, Spore and Leech Seed are all very threatening "non attacking moves". In addition, the common abusers of these moves are slightly frustrating to Gyarados, with Breloom having Mach Punch to revenge a Gyarados that has Mega Evolved, and Ferrothorn having access to both Power Whip and Leech Seed to frustrate both CAP and Gyarados. Sap Sipper is much less of an abuse case when compared with, say, Magic Bounce, and it doesn't directly lock us into a physical direction (it does give us the ability to run a Physical set though if it wanted, or it could Baton Pass a Sap Sipper boost), so I kind of like it, but its hard to form a professional opinion so long as its just me talking about it.
Also note that I am still welcoming any and all future submissions. In the next 26 hour period you are not forced to only discuss my bolded abilities, I am just outlining my current thoughts on a small selection.
Last edited: