Blaze, When this Pokemon is at 1/3 HP or less, all of its Fire-type moves will have 50% more power.
Heatproof or Flash Fire for epic trolling.
Heatproof or Flash Fire for epic trolling.
-
The moderators of this forum can be found in the CAP forum staff directory.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 7 - Flavor Ability Discussion
- Thread starter Deck Knight
- Start date
- Status
What about Guts or Quick Feet?
Since CAP3 is immune to Burn Orb and Toxic Orb, it would only really be of any use if the opponent tries to paralyze it.
Also, it doesn't really feel like CAP3 fits the concept of a Pokemon whose bad typing is its selling point. All we really have is a fire Pokemon that works well in rain. I don't see why we have to gVe it a useless ability, since its only "niche" is to counter and to be used on rain team, which is a bit too situational.
Suction Cups fits the concept and helps it be a boosting sweeper by preventing it from being phased out.
Prankster kinda fits the concept. I could picture that snail being mischevious and pulling pranks on other Pokemon with its tentacles, and it let's CAP3 be a useful support Pokemon, since it already removes Toxic Spikes and and is pretty bulky.
Another choice is Pickpocket. CAP3 could use its cute little tentacles to steal thInga from people. CAP could take advantage of its immunity to poison and burn and trick an orb ontO the opponent. It can then Fling away it's acquired item and retrieve the orb to be used on another Pokemon.
Since CAP3 is immune to Burn Orb and Toxic Orb, it would only really be of any use if the opponent tries to paralyze it.
Also, it doesn't really feel like CAP3 fits the concept of a Pokemon whose bad typing is its selling point. All we really have is a fire Pokemon that works well in rain. I don't see why we have to gVe it a useless ability, since its only "niche" is to counter and to be used on rain team, which is a bit too situational.
Suction Cups fits the concept and helps it be a boosting sweeper by preventing it from being phased out.
Prankster kinda fits the concept. I could picture that snail being mischevious and pulling pranks on other Pokemon with its tentacles, and it let's CAP3 be a useful support Pokemon, since it already removes Toxic Spikes and and is pretty bulky.
Another choice is Pickpocket. CAP3 could use its cute little tentacles to steal thInga from people. CAP could take advantage of its immunity to poison and burn and trick an orb ontO the opponent. It can then Fling away it's acquired item and retrieve the orb to be used on another Pokemon.
Why are so many people posting super-competitive abilities?
Seriously, why the hell are a bunch of people posting up things like Download, Flash Fire, Mold Breaker (Turboblaze), and Magic Bounce. All of those things would create its own competitive niche that in many cases would be preferable to Dry Skin a significant amount of the time. Didn't we just have a huge Ability Discussion about getting a 1.5x boost to Fire type attacks, yet someone is seriously suggesting Download? C'mon. If you have a three paragraph post explaining how competitive your ability is, it might just be too competitive. Never mind Magic Bounce, I banned that for the FIRST ability discussion, never mind this one.
Now I should say that I've come to rethink (yes, again, shoot me later) how I'm approaching this. I think "No Secondary Ability" is a choice that encapsulates one philosophy in how to handle the cap competitively. Problem is, the argument behind NSA is exclusive even to abilities with no effect like Illuminate because simply by existing the argument is they create a competitive niche. After considering that I think its absurd to then create a slate where every other slated ability collectively creates that undesirable niche for the NSA supporting voters anyway.
So what I'm going to do going forward is slate options that have popularity which may or may not be objectively competitive of their own right. Illuminate is not objectively competitive, it's only competitive in relation to lacking the drawbacks of Dry Skin. Suction Cups is objectively competitive since it means the CAP cannot be shuffled by a stall team, and if switched in by Roar or Whirlwind, effectively ends that stall. But either ability would violate the principle NSA is going for. In the end, all that forcing an NSA-ish bent to the slate is going to do is split any votes that would go in the opposite direction, and it still won't be what NSA voters want in principle. Ultimately I'm going to let the voters decide how competitive the flavor ability should be (and keeping in mind it will still be a flavor ability, which is not synonymous with useless).
What I will try to deliberately avoid is abilities that work well against Rain teams in a more specific sense, so things like Hydration and Liquid Ooze which prey on elements of a Rain team will be scrapped. I've considered Flame Body, and the opponent it somewhat effects is a Scarf Terrakion locked into Close Combat or X-Scissor, a Pokemon CAP3 still takes significant damage from. CAP3 will be able to burn foes behind a Substitute anyway, the major calculation of the spread was Lava Plume to begin with. Burn is always a very real possibility with CAP3. Weak Armor is actually pretty huge on this Pokemon, because it can switch into a multitude of attacks. If it switches into U-turn for example, it will then outspeed all threats except for Scarf Terrakion and Scarf Heatran, which could still walk all over it - Unless CAP3 was also Scarfed, in which case it could annihilate them. This is not at all an unlikely scenario, given the sheer number of physical attacks something with Steel, Bug, and Fighting resistances can switch into, and the reality a Scarf Pokemon with 131 SpA is not at all compromised if all it has to do is come in on a 4x resisted U-turn and become faster than everything in the metagame. You could do Scizor to Azumarill, except Dry Skin CAP3 completely walls Azumarill unless they start packing Return.
Thus, the slate under this thought process:
No Secondary Ability
Cute Charm
Flame Body
Illuminate
Poison Touch
Suction Cups
Tangled Feet
I feel these represent abilities that address different flavor elements of CAP3 and have varying degrees of absolute and situational competitive value, in addition to the option of avoiding any competitive conflicts with CAP3's Dry Skin.
Seriously, why the hell are a bunch of people posting up things like Download, Flash Fire, Mold Breaker (Turboblaze), and Magic Bounce. All of those things would create its own competitive niche that in many cases would be preferable to Dry Skin a significant amount of the time. Didn't we just have a huge Ability Discussion about getting a 1.5x boost to Fire type attacks, yet someone is seriously suggesting Download? C'mon. If you have a three paragraph post explaining how competitive your ability is, it might just be too competitive. Never mind Magic Bounce, I banned that for the FIRST ability discussion, never mind this one.
Now I should say that I've come to rethink (yes, again, shoot me later) how I'm approaching this. I think "No Secondary Ability" is a choice that encapsulates one philosophy in how to handle the cap competitively. Problem is, the argument behind NSA is exclusive even to abilities with no effect like Illuminate because simply by existing the argument is they create a competitive niche. After considering that I think its absurd to then create a slate where every other slated ability collectively creates that undesirable niche for the NSA supporting voters anyway.
So what I'm going to do going forward is slate options that have popularity which may or may not be objectively competitive of their own right. Illuminate is not objectively competitive, it's only competitive in relation to lacking the drawbacks of Dry Skin. Suction Cups is objectively competitive since it means the CAP cannot be shuffled by a stall team, and if switched in by Roar or Whirlwind, effectively ends that stall. But either ability would violate the principle NSA is going for. In the end, all that forcing an NSA-ish bent to the slate is going to do is split any votes that would go in the opposite direction, and it still won't be what NSA voters want in principle. Ultimately I'm going to let the voters decide how competitive the flavor ability should be (and keeping in mind it will still be a flavor ability, which is not synonymous with useless).
What I will try to deliberately avoid is abilities that work well against Rain teams in a more specific sense, so things like Hydration and Liquid Ooze which prey on elements of a Rain team will be scrapped. I've considered Flame Body, and the opponent it somewhat effects is a Scarf Terrakion locked into Close Combat or X-Scissor, a Pokemon CAP3 still takes significant damage from. CAP3 will be able to burn foes behind a Substitute anyway, the major calculation of the spread was Lava Plume to begin with. Burn is always a very real possibility with CAP3. Weak Armor is actually pretty huge on this Pokemon, because it can switch into a multitude of attacks. If it switches into U-turn for example, it will then outspeed all threats except for Scarf Terrakion and Scarf Heatran, which could still walk all over it - Unless CAP3 was also Scarfed, in which case it could annihilate them. This is not at all an unlikely scenario, given the sheer number of physical attacks something with Steel, Bug, and Fighting resistances can switch into, and the reality a Scarf Pokemon with 131 SpA is not at all compromised if all it has to do is come in on a 4x resisted U-turn and become faster than everything in the metagame. You could do Scizor to Azumarill, except Dry Skin CAP3 completely walls Azumarill unless they start packing Return.
Thus, the slate under this thought process:
No Secondary Ability
Cute Charm
Flame Body
Illuminate
Poison Touch
Suction Cups
Tangled Feet
I feel these represent abilities that address different flavor elements of CAP3 and have varying degrees of absolute and situational competitive value, in addition to the option of avoiding any competitive conflicts with CAP3's Dry Skin.
Flame Body is pretty much the single best ability there, i'd say, as it makes pokemon think twice before spamming contact moves against a team with CAP3. Suction Cups has niche utility, but Flame Body is more likely to trigger, especially due to the defensive pivot potential of cap3 thanks to poison typing. Emphasizes its potential as a defensive pivot while still not really making up for the lack of dry skin.
Deck, but if CAP3 is running Weak Armor, you can't bluff dry skin, since as soon as it's hit with the u-turn it'll show the ability, so Scizor to Azumarill does work. The problem is more that Azumarill isn't really that used, do we want to see if weak armor CAP3 can make him more used? Also remember that weak armor makes your defense go down as well, so basically any priority will be taking a chunk and maybe even take CAP3 down, depending on which pokemon delivers the blow (can some on do a calc as to how much Scizor's QA does to a -1 defense CAP3? and Aqua Jet Cloyster without setup?)
My favourites so far are: Illuminate, Suction Cups and Liquid Ooze because I just think they fit the Snail/Lava Lamp theme so much!
but what really takes by fancy is Weak Armour. Its a lava lamp and in my mind, aren't they a little fragile? how would a speed increase effect its use? and also the defence decrease? would it be too broken? I don't personally think so and I think it infact inhibits more since it loses out on being a Scizor counter and bulky physical attacker would invaribly be able to take it down, especially those with priority.
but what really takes by fancy is Weak Armour. Its a lava lamp and in my mind, aren't they a little fragile? how would a speed increase effect its use? and also the defence decrease? would it be too broken? I don't personally think so and I think it infact inhibits more since it loses out on being a Scizor counter and bulky physical attacker would invaribly be able to take it down, especially those with priority.
Flame Body and Suction Cups are especially relevant to CAP 3 competitively. Remember that one very plausible situation is CAP 3 switching into Scizor's U-turn. If Scizor is actually afraid to do this because it might get burned, or it actually does get a lucky burn from not knowing that CAP 3 has Flame Body, that's about as relevant as it gets. Suction Cups might interact with the movepool in relevant ways as well. It's just not worth it, imo.
Illuminate is the ability that makes the most flavor sense.
The only other abilities that make any sense flavor-wise (based solely the physical art, and not concepts of the poke's personality or coordination) are Weak Armor, Flame Body, and Color Change, but those all have competitive uses in their own right.
The only other abilities that make any sense flavor-wise (based solely the physical art, and not concepts of the poke's personality or coordination) are Weak Armor, Flame Body, and Color Change, but those all have competitive uses in their own right.
Personally, i think Poison Heal, Tangled Feet and Illuminate are the most viable/flavourful abilities. Flame Body is absoultely too good for Capmon, even if its just an added bonus like it is on Volcorona (which is darn annoying >_>) and Suction Cups has potential to be a problem.
Did we ever really agree that its ability should have absolutely NO competitive use at all though? Because I remember when Deck Knight decided on the final slate for possible abilities, he basically said "these are the only abilities which could be conceivable alternatives to how good Dry Skin is for this CAP". Which essentially means that most of those other abilities ARE non-competitive choices.
Even, for example, Limber and Vital Spirit which would have clear use by making the CAP completely immune to most status effects were considered "non-competitive" by the standards of the previous poll. And other abilities, like magma armour, suction cups, liquid ooze, herbavore, etc. are even LESS competitive for our CAP... so why should they be problems if we agree that they are essentially non-competitive comparedto dry-skin anyway?
The only move Liquid Ooze noticably effects is leech seed, and the most common user, ferrothorn, is treatened by Cap3 anyway. Besides, Liquid Ooze doesn't even prevent the passive damage.
And the only common pokemon that are countered because of the ability itself are breelom or whimsicott, who honestly deserve to eat some ooze!
And the only common pokemon that are countered because of the ability itself are breelom or whimsicott, who honestly deserve to eat some ooze!
I'm going to reiterate the flavor of Sniper. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcBKH7s4SVQ
Flame body gives you a 30% chance to bun something if you switch into it, and that's after the very likely possibility of SR or Spikes on the field, so in many situations you would be giving up over 25% of your health for a chance to burn a Pokemon (with 70% chance of nothing happening), also this completely destroys most of chances for CAP3 to hold a ballon, also if the burn does happen then it's obvious you're not using Dry Skin which means Rotom-W or any other water mon can come
Right, so here's a 24 hr Warning and my current slate, should I not return by then:
No Secondary Ability
Cute Charm
Flame Body
Illuminate
Poison Touch
Sniper
Suction Cups
Tangled Feet
An IRV Poll should be good for this.
No Secondary Ability
Cute Charm
Flame Body
Illuminate
Poison Touch
Sniper
Suction Cups
Tangled Feet
An IRV Poll should be good for this.
Pickpocket
it gives Cap 3 a more mischievous and playful side, and adds buckets of personality to boot.
it gives Cap 3 a more mischievous and playful side, and adds buckets of personality to boot.
I think that what people really need to understand here is that there is a gap between non-competitive abilities and abilities that are viable next to Dry Skin. The last ability discussion brought us plenty of abilities in that gap. I don't see why we're bringing them up again. They are still competitive abilities, the same way Heatproof is competitive on Bronzong.
Asylum_Rhapsody
Guest
Because abilities in that gap weren't slated, because we considered them to effectively not be competitive abilities when compared to Dry Skin, same as Heatproof is effectively not a competitive ability when compared to Levitate on Bronzong. I think at this point we have to just agree to disagree on what we consider to be the more relevant definition of a non-competitive ability. We've discussed it already and come to a stalemate, so Deck's slating multiple options across that spectrum is the right way to go so that it actually gets voted on instead of arbitrarily decided.
I like Suction Cups and Illuminate.
Allow me to stop the Slow Start campaign:
CAP 3 has Base 131 Special Attack, Base 45 Attack, and Base 76 Speed. Base 76 Speed is pretty fast, but with Slow Start, you are at 70 Speed. 70 Speed is pretty slow, which is good if your team is a Trick Room team. Slow Start lasts for 5 turns. Trick Room lasts for 5 turns. See something there? Alright, let's give something slow with a Special Attack stat exceeding Latios Slow Start and see what it does. No.
Allow me to stop the Slow Start campaign:
CAP 3 has Base 131 Special Attack, Base 45 Attack, and Base 76 Speed. Base 76 Speed is pretty fast, but with Slow Start, you are at 70 Speed. 70 Speed is pretty slow, which is good if your team is a Trick Room team. Slow Start lasts for 5 turns. Trick Room lasts for 5 turns. See something there? Alright, let's give something slow with a Special Attack stat exceeding Latios Slow Start and see what it does. No.
I like Illuminate, but want to back Liquid Ooze as well (seeing as CAP3 will be threatening the cast majority of Leech Seed users anyways). If that doesn't get slated, then Suction Cups it is!
You are supposing that it get Trick Room or you use team support, and, even with Slow Start and Trick Room, there are better pokemons to abuse it, because CAP3 can't switch much due his weakness to SR.
Personally, I like:
Slow Start
Stall
Liquid Ooze
Illuminate
Suction Cups
it IS a problem when the abilities are ignored because they "aren't competitive enough" so they don't get slated initially, and then are "too competitive" so they are disalowed for "non-competitive" ability polling.
This is the same problem that happened with the Needle Arm Voodoom fiasco where it was simply not allowed to be brought up in the competitive move discussion because it was "not considered competitive" and then disalowed in the final vote because, despite being non-competitive, there were edge cases where it might be competitive enough.
Middle-of-the-road abilities and attacks really seem to get the shaft in CAP polling because, most of the time, the voting says that the ability or attack MUST be a strong competitive option or completely non-viable and non-competitive.A good portion of the abilities and attacks in the pokémon world fall in that in-between area and the way CAP voting tends to go (and the somehwat suffocating moderation), these things never get a fair chance.
I guess what I'm trying to say in summary is that it isn't right to exclude a lot of abilities because "they aren't competitive enough" to compete with the alternatives, but to then exclude them from flavor polls because they are "too competitive" . . . that way it's impossible for those middle-area abilities to EVER be voted on.
Now, I leave it to the CAP coordinator to decide exactly which poll they should be a part of, but to exclude them entirely doesn't seem right.
And, for the record, I like that Deck Knight is including sme of those abilities, like Poison Touch, Sniper, Flame Body and Suction Cups. I would still LOVE to see Limber or Vital Spirit for the flavor it gives the pokémon given his immunity to burn and poison already, but it doesn't seem to fit stylistically.
- Status