CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.

Imanalt

I'm the coolest girl you'll ever meet
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
First of all, i want to argue against dry skin. One of the major selling points of the fire typing is the sheer power it achieves in sun, dry skin takes this away from cap 3, which seems so wrong when we are looking to make the type a selling point.

Next, i dislike drought, but i am not 100% opposed to it. I'm concerned that drought will become the selling point, and the typing will just be a slight aid to drought.

Water absorb and storm drain are very similar, with the only real difference being in whether cap 3 is more offensive or defensive. However i want to comment that whereas with water absorb we merely achieve a stalemate with many water types, storm drain would let us switch into water type attacks and actually THREATEN the water type who launched that attack.
 
I personally think that if we want to make this CAP a good Pokemon independently the only options are giving it Storm Drain or Water Absorb, we can't pick drought because it just makes a better Ninetales, and nobody wants that, also, though I agree that dry skin is the better option flavor-wise it makes CAP3 dependent on rain. Rain is already extremely common in both the CAP metagame and the standard OU metagame, and I don't think we should just add on more reasons to use a specific form of weather.
 
If the point of this pokemon is to find a counter to water types, we have to remember that taking away rain is one way to do it but not the only way. Even in the Sun, water types still tank fire type hits well, and water type moves will deal neutral damage to our pokemon (remember, in this case it has Drought.) I don't see any thing wrong with trying to counter water types in rain; as fire type STABs won't be doing much, and it's not as if fire types can tank water type moves for long outside of rain anyway. This is why I oppose of Drought.
Remember also that this pokemon has a secondary Poison typing, while not the best type offensively, can hit most water types for neutral or super effective damage (commonly resisted/immune by only Empoleon and Starmie in OU, and Empoleon is even neutral to fire) This is also assuming that our pokemon will have strong poison type moves (or else it would be a waste of a type) Countering water isn't just tanking water type moves, it's also hitting back hard enough to do damage.
That is why Storm Drain best catches my eye. With Storm Drain, our pokemon will not only be immune to water type hits, but it will also be able to get a special attack boost to possibly KO the water type back with a STAB poison move or coverage attack. Many bulky water types do not carry a coverage move (etc. Jellicent, Vaporeon) and therefore are completely walled by our said pokemon.
Then why not use Water Absorb or Dry Skin, you ask?
Water Absorb does not catch my fancy because it is a defensively oriented ability. Sure, you get 1/4 of your health back, but as most water types are very bulky, without the added power boost, there isn't a very high chance that you can truly "counter" that aquatic beast. Unless you yourself carry some coverage moves, you won't be able to do much to your opponent, so he/she can set up on your or recover stall.
Dry Skin isn't my favorite because of the topic covered above, but also because you can not assume that the opposing water type is in rain (I know that's our main focus but this is a necessary topic IMO.) Water types are so common that many aren't restricted to rain, especially now that Drizzle/Swift Swim is banned. Even in rain, the added 1/8 HP every turn won't be helping much, as you won't get the extra power boost as said above and it's not enough to significantly improve your length in the field. This ability also conflicts with Sun teams, as the immunity to water types are over lapped, and the damage lost from Sun will definitely prevent you from maximizing your counter ability.
In conclusion, I feel that Storm Drain is the best option here, because you get an immunity, a power boost, and an ability that does not hinder you anywhere else.
 
I oppose Dry Skin and Drought on principle, and upon review of the concept.

Drought does indeed bolster both abilities, and would almost certainly make the CaP viable. However, I feel as if this might be a little bit too much. If the concept was "create the perfect typing for a drought mon" I would fully support it, due to its immunities to damaging status. However, the concept is "find a way to bolster the typing so that the typing becomes its stregnth." Let's be honest. How many people would use a Pokemon because it has immunities to damaging status, oh, and it happens to have Drought? How many more would use it because it has drought, and happens to have immunities to damaging status?

Exactly. Drought would overshadow the value of the typing when building a team and picking CaP3. Beyond this, it would be no overstatement to call Drought one of the greatest abilities out there. And I think that Krillowatt taught us what can happen when we randomly apply a powerful ability, when other options exist.

Dry Skin also gives me problems, as I feel as if people are using it to justify using poison STAB offensively. Realistically, the concept is designed to bring out the power of the type combination- not every part of it. I would not consider this CaP a failure if it seldom used its poison STAB, so long as its typing was a major part of its success. Dry Skin negates Fire in realistic use, which strikes me as odd. Why do we hinder offensive Fire STAB, one of the reasons this CaP's typing can be good?

Storm Drain is a lesser issue, but it seems wierd that not only does CaP3 wall bulky waters, but they will fear being out if CaP3 gets Storm Drain. Why I view this as bad will be explained below.

I think that CaP3, by typing alone, has a good foundation to deal with bulky waters. The fact is, it has immunity to burn caused by Scald, and Toxic poisoning, as well as a STAB that can strike most back for neutral damage. That, and the bulky sets of the three bulky waters designated as "threatened by CAP3" all have uninvested Scald from base 80-85 special attack as their primary damaging option on their main set. If CaP3 can catch them outside of the rain, it can proceed to poison bulky Jellicent or Politoed, which is a big threat, in addition to taking what amounts to a weak, but super effective, attack. Alternatively, if it gets access to Sunny Day, it can put an even greater threat on the opposing bulky waters.

My proposal is for Cloud Nine or Air Lock. While it doesn't cause CaP3 to be immune to water, it does provide a very intersting niche in that it negates the rain boost on Scald, and shuts down Tentacruel's healing. From there, it can spread status. While Tentacruel would have to be dealt with by something other than ability, a single ability that covers all three of Politoed, Jellicent, and Tentacruel is likely to cover too much else. All this requires is some special bulk or speed to take or outspeed univested Scalds, and CaP3 can comfortably deal with or threaten the bulky waters. When an option like this exists, I don't see why we would have the need for a water immunity ability.

If neither of these two were deemed viable, Storm Drain and Water absorb do fit the concept, and I would be fine with them, even if I do view them as an easy way out.
 
Water Absorb seems like the way to go from the abilities listed IMO. but I think that a second ability that does something completely different might be good for keeping the opponents on their feet as to which ability you're using, something like an ability that helps CAP3 with sweeping, for example, like Serene Grace or some kind of made-up ability that powers up certain attacks (like Iron Fist but for moves that CAP3 will have, I'd say something like a fang/biting-based move boost) or an ability that helps CAP3 to dish status ailments, again like Serene Grace, Prankster or a made-up ability.
 
Water Absorb seems like the way to go from the abilities listed IMO. but I think that a second ability that does something completely different might be good for keeping the opponents on their feet as to which ability you're using, something like an ability that helps CAP3 with sweeping, for example, like Serene Grace or some kind of made-up ability that powers up certain attacks (like Iron Fist but for moves that CAP3 will have, I'd say something like a fang/biting-based move boost) or an ability that helps CAP3 to dish status ailments, again like Serene Grace, Prankster or a made-up ability.
I would suggest Limber, giving it immunity to Poison Burns and Paralysis.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
The prime mistake almost everyone who is vouncing for the absorb abilities is making here is that they are neglecting the poison secondary type, instead playing this like a pure fire type. This is not a mono fire type. This is fire/poison. Out of the four abilities, Drought is the only one that really supports both typings. Ergo, if I had to go with one, I'd go with Drought, as not only does it compliment both types, but as others have said, it gives me a actual reason to use this pokemon as well as fill a niche that is really under-filled (permanent sun).
 
The prime mistake almost everyone who is vouncing for the absorb abilities is making here is that they are neglecting the poison secondary type, instead playing this like a pure fire type. This is not a mono fire type. This is fire/poison. Out of the four abilities, Drought is the only one that really supports both typings. Ergo, if I had to go with one, I'd go with Drought, as not only does it compliment both types, but as others have said, it gives me a actual reason to use this pokemon as well as fill a niche that is really under-filled (permanent sun).
Ninetales fills the perma-sun niche quite well. also, Drought makes poison viable how? in the Sun, I'd say the boosted fire moves are going to be used a lot more than any poison attacks...
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
The prime mistake almost everyone who is vouncing for the absorb abilities is making here is that they are neglecting the poison secondary type, instead playing this like a pure fire type. This is not a mono fire type. This is fire/poison. Out of the four abilities, Drought is the only one that really supports both typings. Ergo, if I had to go with one, I'd go with Drought, as not only does it compliment both types, but as others have said, it gives me a actual reason to use this pokemon as well as fill a niche that is really under-filled (permanent sun).
How exactly does Drought "support both typings" if it just boosts Fire, which is already the better of the two STABs, offensively?

If anything, the ability to attack in Rain with Fire STAB against 4x weak Pokemon like Scizor combined with an alternative STAB in Poison is an argument for the absorbing abilities, and actually does let Poison come out to play. UnSTABbed Fire Blast in Rain would only have 240 Power, with STAB it's 360, which is a significant improvement. There is a chance some other coverage move might overshadow Poison STAB, but the idea Drought "supports both types" is a fairly ludicrous claim.

It certainly does help, as Dusk mentioned, to be immune to both damaging statuses to limit residual damage from them over time, though the Stealth Rock weakness is something to contend with. But that has nothing really to do with Drought as helping both STABs so much as it is highly useful. It is good to have a Weather inducer immune to every common form of residual damage except hazards and Sand/Hail.

Like I said, I'm not opposed to either of these abilities coming up later, what I want to ascertain from the community is the primary means they want to use to, pardon the pun, dampen water types. If they want to explore another angle later, I think it would be a useful experiment to see how it impacts thinking on stats.

In any case, tomorrow is a work day, so I won't be able to close the thread until after 5. Consider this something like a 25 hour warning.

As of right now I'm intent on slating Drought and Dry Skin, and letting the community decide which method they'd prefer to take primacy.
 
Is there any reason we can't create a custom ability that would better serve to accentuate CAP 3's poison typing? Something like Liquid Toxin, that doubles the power of poison moves or acts as a Poison-only Tinted Lens if the CAP is exposed to Rain or takes damage from a water type attack?

I think what this CAP calls for in general is a custom ability, as none of the current abilities really serve to give this pokemon what we want.
 

jas61292

used substitute
is a Community Contributoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Ok, so right now I am leaning towards Dry Skin with Storm Drain being my second favorite. I think the problem that we are seeing too much of in this thread is that people are forgetting that we are supposed to counter Water types. Not Rain. Water. Sure, water types are quite common in rain, but so are many other things. We don't need to shut down the entire playstyle to achieve our goal. Now that is not to say doing well in Rain is bad, but we need to remember what our goal is and stick to it.

I feel Dry Skin is by far the best option here, as it grants immunity to water type moves. Now, three of the suggested abilities do this, so what sets Dry Skin apart? That would be the ability to counter water types in rain, even if they are somewhat threatening outside of their main STAB, without countering rain itself. The residual healing it provides lets it beat out many water types, especially bulkier ones like Tentacruel. At the same time, Dry Skin provides an interesting niche by making a fire type that prefers rain to sun, which may be an ideal way to let it survive in OU.

Because of these extra advantages beyond healing from water moves, I feel that Dry Skin strictly outclasses Water Absorb for this Pokemon. However, I do not feel that Storm Drain is likewise outclassed, and I believe it would be a cool way for CAP3 to take a more offensive role. Receiving a special attack boost rather than healing can let it attack right away with increased power, possibly letting it break through some of the bulkier waters who it cannot directly threaten normally. Lack of healing does make it harder to switch in and out, but it would make CAP3 much more successful in a sweeping role.

Drought, on the other hand, I do not feel helps CAP3 fulfill the role of beating waters. As Flareblitz pointed out earlier, it does not really help against most water types due to its weakness, and without massive SpD and investment, it will still be greatly threatened by them. Additionally, what it does help out against is Rain as a whole, not just water types, defeating an entire strategy, while failing to adequately counter the things we want it to. In addition, I do not feel Drought is in line with the concept we chose. As many before me have pointed out, Drought is almost a free ticket to OU. You will be successful with Drought no matter who you are. In our case all we have to do is be better than Ninetales, and knowing CAP, that is practically a given. It would be a more difficult challenge to make it be worse. Sure, you could argue that poison helps the weather starter by giving it a Toxic immunity, but what does that have to do with anything? Isn't a toxic immunity a boon for any Pokemon? Weather starting has nothing to do with it. All that is doing is taking a generic argument for poison types and trying to tack it on to an ability. If it has Dry Skin, guess what? It is still immune to Toxic. What it comes right down to is that Drought does not help the Pokemon be successful due to its typing. It makes it successful due to Drought, and does not even adequately help it conform to our chosen list of counters and threats.
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
I think Rediamond just hit the nail on the head. Cloud Nine might be the best ability for CAP3 that I've seen yet.

Cloud Nine does exactly what the concept outlines. Most bulky Waters need their precious Rain boost to do significant damage to a defensive Fire type, and offensive Fire types hate the Rain because it damages their STAB. This ability aids the Pokemon whether we decide to go an offensive or defensive route, and in my opinion is much better than Drought or Dry Skin. Drought is a cool option, but it's pretty clearly against the concept. Dry Skin is interesting, but Water Absorb and Storm Drain do similar things and better fit the concept.

However, Cloud Nine, combined with the right stats, could make CAP3 a better Rain counter. If we can successfully use Cloud Nine to create a Fire-typed Rain counter, or at least a Bulky Water counter, then we've already succeeded in the concept no matter what.

Now, could someone describe how Drought is a good idea? It teaches us absolutely nothing about the metagame, fails the concept, and we'll probably just end up with a better Ninetales. Drought, though it does counter Rain, is already a formidable presence in the OU and CAP metagames and we have already seen what auto-Sun does to the metagame. It seems to me that we're really wasting a CAP if we decide to go with Drought because we're just making Ninetales 2.0.

jas said:
At the same time, Dry Skin provides an interesting niche by making a fire type that prefers rain to sun, which may be an ideal way to let it survive in OU.
It would be interesting if Volcarona didn't do it first. Though Volcarona and CAP3 will most likely perform different roles in the Rain, Game Freak already designed a Fire Pokemon that prefers Rain to Sun. Volcarona's Rain set might not be its most popular set, but it's still a powerful presence in the metagame.
 
It would be interesting if Volcarona didn't do it first. Though Volcarona and CAP3 will most likely perform different roles in the Rain, Game Freak already designed a Fire Pokemon that prefers Rain to Sun. Volcarona's Rain set might not be its most popular set, but it's still a powerful presence in the metagame.
I fail to see how Volcarona prefers rain. Now don't get me wrong, it can run a successful rain set. But boosting your stab while at the same time weakening a type that hit's you for SE seems superior to a 100% coverage move and any other advantages rain would/could bring.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
How exactly does Drought "support both typings" if it just boosts Fire, which is already the better of the two STABs, offensively?

If anything, the ability to attack in Rain with Fire STAB against 4x weak Pokemon like Scizor combined with an alternative STAB in Poison is an argument for the absorbing abilities, and actually does let Poison come out to play. UnSTABbed Fire Blast in Rain would only have 240 Power, with STAB it's 360, which is a significant improvement. There is a chance some other coverage move might overshadow Poison STAB, but the idea Drought "supports both types" is a fairly ludicrous claim.

It certainly does help, as Dusk mentioned, to be immune to both damaging statuses to limit residual damage from them over time, though the Stealth Rock weakness is something to contend with. But that has nothing really to do with Drought as helping both STABs so much as it is highly useful. It is good to have a Weather inducer immune to every common form of residual damage except hazards and Sand/Hail.

Like I said, I'm not opposed to either of these abilities coming up later, what I want to ascertain from the community is the primary means they want to use to, pardon the pun, dampen water types. If they want to explore another angle later, I think it would be a useful experiment to see how it impacts thinking on stats.

In any case, tomorrow is a work day, so I won't be able to close the thread until after 5. Consider this something like a 25 hour warning.

As of right now I'm intent on slating Drought and Dry Skin, and letting the community decide which method they'd prefer to take primacy.
Drought supports both typings by allowing Fire STABS, as well as supporting poison's utility. It can swap into a obvious toxic to get sun up and it can eat toxic spikes at the same time. The poison typing, in my opinion, will not be doing the heavy attack work no matter what we go with, but it provides a reliable backup STAB if for whatever reason rain goes up. I feel though that unless we give it a custom ability that enhances its poison STABs that we shouldn't rely on poison as the primary attacking type, but instead as a viable backup attacking type.


Cloud nine sounds really interesting however, and I would totally back it.
 
@ nyttyn;
I disagree; poison attacks could do quite a bit of the brunt work. If CAP 3 is given dry skin and thus prefers to fight in the rain, then the damage reduction to it's fire stab, and the fact that it will be primarily a bulky water counter (which further resists fire), makes the second stab far more viable, or else some coverage move. So giving it an ability that it makes it more inclined to rain will probably emphasize the poison typing quite a bit.
 
Politoed is OU because of Drizzle. There are plenty of Water-types that do a better job of being bulky than Politoed does. Nobody would use it in OU were it not for Drizzle.
Ninetales is OU because of Drought. There are plenty of Fire-types that do a better job of sweeping and supporting than Ninetales does. Nobody would use it in OU were it not for Drought.
Tyranitar is OU because of Sand Stream. There are plenty of Rock-types that do a better job of hitting hard than Tyranitar does. Nobody would use it in OU were it not for Sand Stream.
Hippowdon is BL because of Sand Stream. There are plenty of Ground-types that do a better job of tanking than Hippowdon does. Nobody would use it above UU were it not for Sand Stream.
Abomasnow is BL because of Snow Warning. Grass/Ice-typing just plain sucks. Nobody would use it above UU were it not for Snow Warning.

Anybody seeing a pattern here?

If we give CAP3 Drought, then all of its main focus will turn into setting up sunlight first and foremost. We'll lose any and all hope of making its typing its selling point, and we could give it an abysmal movepool yet it will still be OU because of Drought. A lot of Weather-starting Pokemon are in their respective tiers specifically because of their ability, and this would be no exception. Somebody tell me that Hippopotas would be UU were it not for Sand Stream, seriously. I need a good laugh right about now.

I'm against Drought, in short.
 
Dry Skin to me seems to be the way to go. I don't really see any reason as to why it shouldn't be (Heatran's going to beat it no matter what), and it will offset hazard damage, which I suspect will be the real problem for this Pokemon. Drought's going to make CAP b used solely for Drought.
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
On Cloud Nine:

Cloud Nine is entirely inferior to Drought for the purposes of this discussion. CAP3 is still just as weak to Water with Cloud Nine as it would be without it, and it harms CAP 3's effectiveness in Sun. While the Sand and Hail damage immunities are welcome, they only last for as long as CAP 3 is in, and in the case of Sand that isn't going to be very long. Cloud Nine does not allow us to threaten any of the Water-types we want it to. Those Pokemon still resist our unboosted STAB and still ht CAP3 for super-effective damage.
 
To the contrary, Cloud Nine actually does help CaP3 achieve its purposes better than it would without it. Most OU Bulky waters, and specifically the ones specified as "threatens" have fairly average Special Attack stats, which are generally uninvested in Bulky Sets. To top it off, they almost always use Scald, which has an unremarkable base power in terms of offense. The only thing that makes these hits threatening to something with good special defense is the fact that they hit much harder than normal due to the rain support they will likely be recieving.

Without rain support in play, most things with a decent special defense stand able to take a hit or two. Politoed and Jellicent will not want to risk getting hit by some sort of status, which can add up quickly, and are thus threatened by CaP3 entering the field. For example, an univested Tentacruel Scald in neutral weather would fail to OHKO CaP3 with Cloud Nine and Lucario's defense stats! Imagine if it held something a bit more substantial to work with. Even if it has no direct way to deal with Tentacruel, who says that we need to deal with it in the ability stage? There's more than one way to get around it, and I feel as if we're trying to take too big of a step by countering all of the bulky waters with a single ability, not taking into account stats or movepool stages later.

As for the idea that it hurts Fire STAB, if there's another ability no CaP3 on a sun team would use Cloud Nine. While this would leave it unable to threaten bulky water with the other ability, this holds true for Drought and Dry Skin as well, and Dry Skin is a bigger detriment to fire STAB.

tl;dr Super-effective from a Bulky Water means "has some power to it," and not "automatic OHKO."
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
And "not-very effective" STAB means you aren't a check, so there's that working against Cloud Nine.

A 2HKO vs. a 4HKO always works in favor of whoever can 2HKO, and CAP3 takes more damage from hazards than bulky waters. There's really no getting around the fact Cloud Nine is utterly insufficient.
 
Let's face it. Fire blunts many of the usual advantages of Poison. The Fighting resistance isn't so effective with a Rock weakness, and Fire is so much better than Poison as an offensive STAB that Poison-type moves are going to have a hard time really fitting in. For whatever reason, we didn't pick mono-Fire or mono-Poison. We picked Fire/Poison. So our goal should be to accentuate all of the advantages of that typing. That means exploiting the advantages of both Fire and Poison, not just helping Fire and having Poison tag along.

Drought achieves precisely this. Does it really matter whether we make a new niche or outclass Ninetales or whatever? Making a new niche was a (very reasonable, to be fair) speculated result of the concept submission, not the purpose of it. Poison's ability to remove Toxic Spikes here would not just be a fancy add-on to Drought CAP 3. It would explicitly help CAP 3's role specifically. Neither Water Absorb nor Storm Drain define a role for CAP 3 the way Drought does, and all they really do is patch up a weakness brought about by ONE of the types, in a frankly cheesy fashion. Let's not pretend that the healing/boosting is going to be consistent enough to be extremely relevant to CAP 3, either. I've used Gastrodon and Jellicent often enough to know that the Water immunity is by far the biggest selling point of Water Absorb and Storm Drain.

I already mentioned that the effectiveness of an ability like Drought depends greatly on the typing. The Tropius vs Charizard analogy I gave highlighted this, albeit for Solar Power (though it's the same principle). Drought helps Fire-type STAB and no other STAB. Poison helps a Drought inducer by granting immunity to Toxic AND absorbing Toxic Spikes, which also no other type grants. The only reason one would say that CAP 3 would be "about" Drought is that Drought is recognized as a powerful ability. But Drought is like almost any other ability in that its effectiveness depends on other factors, and in fact, it interacts with this typing more than most other abilities do. Power does not equal focus, and even if it did, we'd just have this same argument with stats and movepool.

Let's also remember WHY we're trying to lessen the threat of bulky Water-types, to the point of perhaps threatening them. We decided that we needed CAP 3 to be able to do something against rain, especially rain stall. This was because fighting sand would be largely a lost cause, and all OU Fire-types can function in rain to some extent. I doubt that a non-Drought CAP 3 would really help sun, either; it would have to succeed where Heatran/Infernape/Volcarona/Venusaur have imo largely failed. I fear that if we just slap on a Water absorption ability to fulfill the threat discussion literally, we're going to miss out on WHY we wanted to threaten Water-types in the first place.

FlareBlitz's argument is a pretty compelling against Drought, but in the end, we do have another ability if we want to address this directly (many of the Drought supporters also want Dry Skin). Besides, Tyranitar doesn't exactly like switching directly into Politoed, either, and it still functions well as the flagship sand inducer. FlareBlitz's argument certainly showed that Drought doesn't cover all our bases. But neither do the other abilities. We'll need (at least) two abilities to do everything we want.
 
cloud nine/air lock is a terrible ability for defense oriented mons only one pokemon successfully uses it and that's Rayquaza who's uber and only really uses it to screw over ferrothorn in the rain.

i like dusk's ability proposals for most of the same reasons he proposed a weather starter that not worn down by toxic would be huge.

for more generally offensive oriented abilities though i would like to see Adaptability or Tinted Lens which would give it's poison stab a bit more of a nudge poison's bad offensive typing looks a bit more moot when you have fire stab hitting most non heatran steels SE and adaptability sludge bomb/wave and gunk shot/poison jab look more attractive with double BP or hitting rocks and grounds for neutral damage with tinted lens
 
If it is between Drought and Dry Skin then the answer is overwhelming obvious: Dry Skin.

I have found that the best way to beat an opposing Pokemon is to burn-errr be immune to it. By being immune to the pesky water-type STABs, it allows it to have a win over one of it's typing's greatest foe. Plus it gives it a unique home, where it's ability to completely stomp ferrothorn and scizor will be loved. Not only that, but it helps in the goal of making it check itself (before it wrecks itself. I'm sorry for not resisting) due to taking extra damage from fire-type attacks. Drought is awesome, but Dry Skin serves our design idea MUCH much better, and if it's a pick between both and the other is unusable, my vote is for Dry Skin.

Edit: yes both would be the best, my post is just talking about a "pick one, can't use the other" scenario if one arises.
 

Katakiri

Listen, Brendan...
is a Researcher Alumnus
I was all for Dry Skin, but then I realized it weakness our CAP's Fire resistance by half. Partially giving up a resistance for an ability that is already a double-edged sword due to Sun Damage doesn't seem like an optimal idea. Dry Skin would mean CAP 3 would take passive damage from 3 out of the 4 weather conditions while being weak to Stealth Rock and Spikes. An immunity to Burn & Poison damage can only go so far to counteract that.

Of course I know that our CAP can have more than one ability, but it's obvious that the ability to absorb Water moves would beat-out any ability bar Magic Guard and having 2 abilities that do basically the same thing would be...Delibird-ish?

Water Absorb is perfect as it does exactly what we wanted our ability to do while minimizing the cons and allowing CAP 3's use in any weather.

Drought on the other hand doesn't do much for CAP 3 itself as much as it does for Sun Teams in general. Taking a Water-type Attack for neutral damage is not ideal when you're, again dealing with SR & Spikes weakness already.

Besides, Politoed can't touch the damn thing with Water Absorb since CAP 3 resists Ice Beam, Focus Blast, & HP Grass naturally and it's immune to Toxic. It beats not only Politoed, but Ninetales, Venusaur bar Earthquake, & Ferrothorn as well which means it can set-up whatever it likes on the 2 most common members of Rain and Sun teams. For a Pokemon with that typing, it really can't ask for anything better than that for an ability.
 
I'd like to make a case for Dry Skin if I could.

I love the fact that Dry Skin makes CAP 3 a fire type that can operate within and against rain teams. Big threats like Scizor can't hide behind their fish buddies anymore, because CAP 3 not only functions in rain, he LOVES it. With STAB counteracting rain's weakening of Fire attacks, rain is no longer safe. And I love that.

Now, some folks are lamenting CAP 3's inability to function in sun. I love that too. You know what functions in sun? Every other fire type in the game. And fire was voted as being a bad enough type to land as the "bad type" CAP's primary. Do we really want this fire type to be like the rest of them? The rest of them suck, apparently.

Is poison along for the ride? Yep. But what can we do about that? Poison doesn't get any weather effects. Poison hits precious few types for super effective damage. Poison doesn't do much for CAP 3 other than make it immune to poison status and give it more reason to fear Earthquake. But you know what? Poison, as a type, has "been along for the ride" since gen I. So how do you make it a good type? You make it ride along with something good. Like a fire type that can pick apart rain teams. That's a pretty good ride.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top