CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 7 - Secondary Ability Discussion

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verbatim

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Adaptability and Pure Power are out of the question though. CAP3's STABs don't need an additional power boost when they have a 131 Attacking stat, this isn't mono-Poison physical where that might be a good option. Much as I like mixed attacking, Medicham is nowhere near as bulky as CAP 3, and I really think we should abide by the will of the voters here. They had a chance to vote for mid and high Atk spreads, and they lost. The focus here is how do they help the typing fill niches specific to it, which something like Suction Cups does because of the immunity from statuses that have residual damage, etc.
With all due respect sir I'm going to have to disagree with this. The bolded argument isn't really effective, if the majority of people do not like physical attack then letting Pure Power in will not hurt anything at all. On the other hand it could be because that so few attack spreads were submitted or that they had other undesirable characteristics counterbalancing the attack stat.

While Medicham is nowhere near as bulky as CAP 3, CAP 3 is nowhere near as powerful as Medicham. Assuming both run Jolly and 252 ev's Medicham has 438 attack points in comparison to CAP 3's 378. Compounding on this is the difference in STABS. The difference between Fire Punch, Poison Jab, and their weaker counterparts (Cross Poison, Flame Wheel, Flame Charge, etc) and Hi Jump Kick is astounding (from what I've seen on IRC, their is almost unanimous hatred for Flare Blitz, thus I've left it out. Gunk Shot is dependent on us giving CAP 3 Coil, and Sacred Flare needs no explanation). Factoring in stab Poison Jab (the strongest move I named) hits 120 damage... to Hi Jump Kick's 195.
 

erisia

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I've changed my mind following the discussion about CAP3's utility in Drought, and I want to re-iterate simply "not damaging CAP3 during Drought" isn't good enough justification to use an alternative ability. We need to bear in mind that, unless CAP3 is being used on a Drought team, Dry Skin will almost certainly be its most popular ability due to its various beneficial attributes, as discussed previously. Thus, its remaining competitive abilities should be tailored specifically to its use on Drought teams.

Water Absorb is the safest option, as it retain's CAP3's unique functionality as much as possible in Drought, while removing the potential damage from otherwise favourable weather conditions. In terms of preserving CAP3's current purpose as much as possible, while giving it the versatility to be used on Drought teams effectively, this is objectively the best option.

Drought was an ability I initially opposed, but looking at the arguments presented here, I now think it's one of the best choices. It doesn't reduce the comparative utility of its Poison-type attacks as much as I thought it would, and making CAP3 the primary Drought pokemon would let it use its Poison-typing effectively to absorb Toxic Spikes for the team, and to provide more resistances for it to switch in on, as well as bolstering existing resistances to key moves such as Scizor's U-Turn. These are all excellent reasons to use CAP3 over Ninetales, and although its stats are better, its Poison typing will be the main thing that sets it apart overall, making Drought a great choice to accentuating its typing. I don't think this will drive Dry Skin usage down too much either, as the abilites work on opposing team styles, and unless Drought absolutely dominates Drizzle in a completely unexpected turn of events, I expect CAP3 to be present as a key player on both sides of the weather war.

Other abilities such as Regenerator, Chlorophyll, Solar Power etc would be cool, but I feel they'd be wasted in comparison. Regenerator is great for healing entry hazard damage, but we've got to compare its utility to DW Amoonguss, not Mienshao, and I don't think it would be useful enough to warrant using CAP 3 over Heatran on Drought teams, who has an easier time switching into most everything other than entry hazards. Chlorophyll and Solar Power are cool and I don't really have anything against them, but I just feel like Water Absorb and Drought are better choices, so I won't argue for them.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Agreeing with Verbatim. If there had been a spread that was 95/90/83/131/105/76 and it had lost to Dusk, then you could say that the voters did not pick a high Attack stat. As it currently stands, Dusk could have (and probably did) win for other reasons than his Atk stat, as spreads are submitted as a whole and not piecemeal, so you often have to make concessions on some stat points in order to get what you want in others. As it stands, i voted for Korski's purely for the higher Speed stat, even though frankly R_D got everything else more right than Korski did. currently there is no argument against bolstering CAP3's attack except that of pointlessness. (which is a p good argument imho)
 
Can we please stop with the doomsday prophecies? Drought is an ability with clearly defined properties. It is not an instant win button. If you're going to suggest that Drought is going to be too powerful, elaborate on this, as FlareBlitz has done. Being drama queens about it isn't going to achieve anything.

I think that people took the wrong thing away from Krilowatt. Making a Pokémon wrong is not the thing that we should take out of these projects. Each mistake is a learning experience. Krilowatt got Magic Guard, and it turned out, hey, it pretty much completely eclipsed Trace. We learn something from being bold. It's not a bad thing to turn out wrong. Probably most of the CAPs turned out wrong in some way. If it turns out right, that's great, and we learned something from that, too! It's like Tomohawk. A lot of people thought that Prankster would eclipse Intimidate, and in the playtest, Intimidate was the star of the show. Now, Prankster is pretty much superior in the CAP metagame, but that's another story.

Also, if you're going to suggest a useless ability, or even if you want Dry Skin to be THE focus, you might as well vote No Competitive Secondary Ability and let the art decide Abilities 2/3.

@ Magnesium Sulfate: Everything hinges on your assumption that Drought will be favoured over Dry Skin. Maybe Drought will be so hyped that it will be used more than Dry Skin. Ultimately, though, I don't think it's that easy to pass up immunity to Water-type moves AND 1/8 healing PER TURN in rain without even doing anything (3/16 with Leftovers, 1/40 with Life Orb). I don't happen to agree with the technical reasoning given for not slating Pure Power / Huge Power, either, but I also don't see it being good enough alongside Dry Skin, so I don't really care... Also, are you seriously suggesting that assured status moves are going to compel people to pass up Dry Skin?

@ Pwnemon: The whole point behind what you quoted was that CAP 3 is a worse wallbreaker outside the rain than Heatran right now, and that Drought would give it the distinguishing factor that it needs.

I was going to make a better reply to FlareBlitz, but due to time, I'll just say I'm not entirely convinced by the Electric absorption abilities. It seems counterproductive, especially considering WHY Wash Rotom is such a great Volt Switch user in the first place. CAP 3 might confuse Rotom... once. Plus, the ability might be easy to figure out by the team around CAP 3.
 
Below are the reasons behind my proposed secondary ability for CAP 3:
  • A FIRE-Pokemon who only truly excels in a RAIN team is a very unique, and awesome, niche.
  • Being on a RAIN team means that's its FIRE STABs are weakened somewhat, making players give its POISON STABs more of a consideration.
  • DRY SKIN is a very powerful move, and if we do decide to have a competitive secondary ability, it should be something that players would seriously consider over its first.
  • CAP3's Fire/Poison typing means it's already immune to two statuses (burned and poisoned), and making it immune to the others would be great (which explains why Limber and Vital Spirit were suggested).

Take all these reasons together, and it's easy to see why I'm proposing HYDRATION.
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
Below are the reasons behind my proposed secondary ability for CAP 3:
  • A FIRE-Pokemon who only truly excels in a RAIN team is a very unique, and awesome, niche.
  • Being on a RAIN team means that's its FIRE STABs are weakened somewhat, making players give its POISON STABs more of a consideration.
  • DRY SKIN is a very powerful move, and if we do decide to have a competitive secondary ability, it should be something that players would seriously consider over its first.
  • CAP3's Fire/Poison typing means it's already immune to two statuses (burned and poisoned), and making it immune to the others would be great (which explains why Limber and Vital Spirit were suggested).

Take all these reasons together, and it's easy to see why I'm proposing HYDRATION.
The fact that cap3 already has two status immunities just makes this ability less valuable. I can't really see any reason why someone would choose it over dry skin either
 
I'm cool with Deck not slating Huge/Pure Power because, quite frankly, it's a bad bet. I would never, as a competitive Pokemon player, choose Pure Power CAP 3 over Dry Skin CAP 3. There is simply no contest. CAP 3's entire success hinges on somehow withstanding Water-types, either through the use of Dry Skin's immunity or potentially Drought's pseudo-resistance. Furthermore, there is no good case for Pure Power supporting the concept; it is essentially a stat-boosting ability for no reason other than to boost stats. That is a bad idea.

I'd also like to make a case against Intimidate. Every Pokemon we are supposed to be threatening is special, and every Pokemon we're supposed to be threatened by is physical. This is a very important point, and essentially forms the foundation of why I consider it contrary to what we should be going for here. My stat spread is specifically designed in its physical bulk to be good, but simultaneously weak enough that even the most common Tyranitar's Stone Edge beats it. If it had Intimidate, it could actually check a lot of physical Pokemon I feel it either has no business against or should rather not be beating at all. I think slating Intimidate would be a very irresponsible thing to do considering the threats list we've all chosen.

Flower Gift doesn't achieve anything beyond making CAP 3 immensely bulky in the sun. This has nothing to do with its typing, makes it a veritable special wall otherwise, and really doesn't further the concept in any way, shape or form. All Flower Gift attempts to do is change the stat spread in sun, effectively. I don't think that is worth considering, but it's not as bad a bet as some of the other options. I'm mostly neutral here, I guess.

Water Absorb is completely redundant with Dry Skin; making CAP 3 viable in sun is not a goal here. There is zero reason we should even consider having Storm Drain or Water Absorb alongside Dry Skin. Dry Skin is superior in every way for what we want to achieve, and CAP 3 is outclassed in sun no matter how you slice it. Water Absorb is essentially irrelevant.
 

Deck Knight

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Medicham might be more powerful. It also can't nuke the hell out of physical walls with a 131 SpA STAB Fire Blast at will. And anyone thinking Huge/Pure Power are comparable to 90 Atk aren't paying attention. Azumarill has 50 Base Atk and Max Adamant reached 438. You might remember this stat from such Pokemon as Adamant Max Attack Groudon.

As such 45 Base is 5 Base Points less, meaning 10 total points, meaning 22 less points with a boosting nature, or basically it tops at 416 Atk. Which is the same as... +Atk Darmanitan. Except +Attack Darmanitan can't just fragment Gliscor with Fire Blast (or more likely HP Ice) at will. Yes I realize Gliscor has a faster EQ in theory.

In any case I'm thinking about slating:

Drought
Regenerator
No Competitive Ability

I really think these abilities are competitively comparable to Dry Skin (or in the case of NCA an escape button) given our CAP's unique type, and can be augmented by Movepool in some cases to be even more effective than they are on paper.

I think things like Flame Body, Suction Cups etc. are still useful, but I don't think they quite hit the realm of comparable competitiveness with Dry Skin. I'm still willing to be convinced as to whether NCA should be an option or if there is an additional competitive ability in this realm.
 
The fact that cap3 already has two status immunities just makes this ability less valuable. I can't really see any reason why someone would choose it over dry skin either
Hydration grants HydraRest (for 100% HP recovery with no drawbacks) and Sleep and Paralysis immunity (in addition to CAP3's Burn and Poison immunity)

Dry Skin grants immunity to Water attacks (rather, it gains 25% HP when hit by it) and 12.5% HP recovery (equivalent to two Leftovers) every turn, PLUS taking 0.625x damage from FIRE attacks (instead of just 0.5x) and losing 12.5% HP every turn under the sun (ouch!)

I'd say I'd choose Hydration if CAP3's trying to set-up in rain (granted if it gets any stat-up moves) OR if I'd want to use it in a sun team (131 SpA with Toxic immunity and Toxic Spikes absorption isn't a bad addition to sun teams), WHILE Dry Skin is generally the better choice for stall or support sets solely under rain.
 
@ Pwnemon: The whole point behind what you quoted was that CAP 3 is a worse wallbreaker outside the rain than Heatran right now, and that Drought would give it the distinguishing factor that it needs.
Okay, I just thought I should respond to this.

Either Drought is more powerful, or it is not more powerful.
If it is, then we are over-shadowing the primary ability, which if something we do not went to do.
If it isn't, then CAP 3 already has "the distinguishing factor that it needs".

I think the purpose of the secondary ability is to give the CAP a different niche or play-style. If the community wanted drought, they could have voted for it. As it is, drought would pretty much be the only useful ability. Heatran is already a common sight, and if we insert into the metagame a version of it stronger by about one team mate. That would be way top over centralizing, on the order of inserting Drought Pyroak into the DPP metagame.

In any case, our job in finding a good secondary ability should not take into consideration the addition if a distinguishing factor. Dry Skin is perfectly powerful by itself.
I don't mean to in this post give a whole explanation why Drought is bad; I just want to point out that faulty reasoning.
 
Alternatively, I would also support Adaptability. This mon is about making bad typing good, and Adaptability really accentuates the Fire and Poison STABs. Instead of finding ways to sneak around the typing, it makes us rely even more on the Fire and Poison typing and even raises its power. For once, it might be a good idea to spam Sludge Bomb. Adaptability doesn't help with coverage, but it helps make moves like Sludge Bomb hit water types and other mons hard. The neutral typing suddenly becomes threatening.
Lets not forget the conceptThis is the best ability for sticking with the concept.
 

MCBarrett

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Hydration grants HydraRest (for 100% HP recovery with no drawbacks) and Sleep and Paralysis immunity (in addition to CAP3's Burn and Poison immunity)
This would be nice if it kept the water type immunity but since it doesn't it would make cap3 a sitting duck against rain teams. I just did a quick calc for cap3 with max special defense max hp against a choice spec hydro pump from max sp attack politoed in rain and cap3 would take 134-158% from that. Plus the fact that cap3 is slow makes it even more vulnerable

Also using hydration on a sun team like you said would do nothing so an ability like drought would be much more useful there
 
I'll throw in a bit of support for Adaptability, as I think it fits the concept better than the other abilities. It also provides CAP3 with a different style than Dry Skin, as it turns it into an offensive Pokemon threatening with Fire STAB instead of a counter to Rain Teams or indeed a Pokemon used in rain only.

I have to say I'm not a big fan of Drought, mainly because I think we don't need a Pokemon that is not only a weather setter, but also a threat to other weathers. Of the four weathers, only Politoed is able to threaten the other weathers (not including Abomasnow, who isn't really seen much anyways), with STAB Water attacks hitting for SE damage against both TTar and Ninetales. Ultimately. rain is powerful because it is a weather which has an advantage against the other weathers by default. To add in an equivalent for Sun, one that can both set up sun or work well in rain, doesn't seem like a good idea to me. While I realise it can't do both in one set, it does provide an issue in that it would be very difficult to figure out which ability it is running, before it's preferred weather would be established.

As for Regenerator, this doesn't seem like the type of Pokemon who would need it. It has decent Defenses, and the Pokemon who normally have this ability are generally more frail attacking Pokemon. Mienshao and Starmie (yes, I know about the whole Analyse/Regenerator issue) both fall under the fast and frail category. Given Dusk's spread of 76 Speed, this CAP doesn't seem to fit Regenerator at all.

Water Absorb seems a safe bet, though. It provides a nice choice between consistent healing, or better but not guaranteed healing. I do think it risks being outclassed by Dry Skin, but the extra immunity is nice.

Hydration just seems redundant, as I wouldn't want to be relying on this thing to spend a turn, in rain, to use Rest. While Status immunity is great, it doesn't seem viable when it only works in a weather which boosts CAP3's greatest weakness.
 
Drought
Regenerator
No Competitive Ability

I really think these abilities are competitively comparable to Dry Skin (or in the case of NCA an escape button) given our CAP's unique type, and can be augmented by Movepool in some cases to be even more effective than they are on paper.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how are Drought and Dry Skin "competitively comparable?"

From all of the discussions, it seems like they are very different, Drought being much more sun team-building/support oriented, and Dry Skin more about CAP healing itself in the rain and having Water immunity. Yes, they both diminish CAP's weakness to Water, but there is no way to deny that the different abilities would play very different roles on a team.

Also even if you feel that these abilities are "competitively comparable," which I do not, why do CAP's abilities need to be? As previously mentioned, Krillowatt's Magic Guard totally eclipses Trace, and Guts is more used on Colossoil. Even many non-CAP pokemon have one ability that outclasses its others. Blissey always has Natural Cure. Magnezone always has Magnet Pull. Breloom always has Poison Heal. Just saying, "competitive comparability" doesn't seem like a great argument, not that I agree Drought and Dry Skin as "comparable."
 
when deck knight said Competitively comparable, he meant that drought was as effective in competitive play as dry skin, if not more... i think
 

Asylum_Rhapsody

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Water Absorb is completely redundant with Dry Skin; making CAP 3 viable in sun is not a goal here. There is zero reason we should even consider having Storm Drain or Water Absorb alongside Dry Skin. Dry Skin is superior in every way for what we want to achieve, and CAP 3 is outclassed in sun no matter how you slice it. Water Absorb is essentially irrelevant.
I think that you might be missing the point, Dusk. That Dry Skin is superior in every way for what we want to achieve compared to Storm Drain or Water Absorb I think is exactly why those abilities are being suggested, to keep the focus on Dry Skin while allowing alternative niche builds to keep immunity to water. It's just that some people still consider those abilities to be competitively significant despite not comparing to Dry Skin, hence why they're being suggested not as a part of No Competitive Ability. If our stance is that Dry Skin is simply superior to those abilities, then would a vote for No Competitive Ability include Storm Drain or Water Absorb as possibilities?

Additionally, I want to address the bold section:
If that's the case, if that's your argument, then why on earth should we ever consider giving it Drought?
 
One argument I haven't seen for drought is the fact that Dry Skin is completely viable, compared to Ninetail's other ability. This gives CAP3 a secondary role that does a completely different thing, which would allow for a look at how a weather ability would stack up against an equally viable choice.

For non-drought picks, I would like to talk about the following:

Adaptability - this would allow for harder hitting STABs, which would allow CAP3 to threaten water-types a bit better, along with smash everything else a bit better. It isn't an awesome solution, as it still has a speed problem, but is fairly close to threatening water-types as well as dry skin or drought.

Motor Dive/Lightningrod - is interesting as it could viably fit on a rain team as well: it lets CAP3 switch in on a SE electric type attack and gain a boost. Unfortunately this will not help it vs water-types :/ Incedentally: I am for Motor Drive over Lightningrod, because it boosts CAP3's low speed, making it very scary.

Regenerator - is a nice ability, it helps a little vs water-types, but doesnt give them a huge reason to fear the CAP3. But helping it vs passive damage is nothing to sneeze at. It's a very valid ability.

Limber/Insomnia/Vital Spirit - giving it immunity to 3 statuses is another neat trick that wouldn't help much vs water-types, but is good in general. By doing this, it makes it harder to set up against.

Suction Cups - interesting idea, as it would indeed put CAP3 in a role the typing wouldn't usually put it in. However it would be a huge challenge due to it being weak vs passive damage, with the exception towards what it is immune to.

My two cents. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go beat up whoever had Worry Seed used on me. Darn Insomnia.
 

erisia

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Water Absorb is completely redundant with Dry Skin; making CAP 3 viable in sun is not a goal here. There is zero reason we should even consider having Storm Drain or Water Absorb alongside Dry Skin. Dry Skin is superior in every way for what we want to achieve, and CAP 3 is outclassed in sun no matter how you slice it. Water Absorb is essentially irrelevant.
I'm not trying to make CAP3 amazing in Drought. It's obvious that Dry Skin is by far the best ability for it in non-Drought conditions, so I'm just saying that the other abilities should focus on Drought conditions if they're actually going to see any use, and in Drought conditions, Water Absorb is a better ability than Dry Skin. I don't think Water Absorb CAP3 would be /purely/ outclassed in Drought either, as it's still a Fire-type that Politoed can't just immediately stop, unlike Heatran, and taking Scalds for physical Chlorophyll sweepers, Dragonite, Dugtrio, Donphan etc is nice. CAP3 would also be a useful fallback when the weather war is lost, and you need something to switch into a Drizzle Hydro Pump so that you can get Ninetales back into battle safely. Unlike Dragonite, CAP3 isn't going to be worn down by residual damage when doing this.

But overall, I think I'd rather vote for Water Absorb in the third poll. It's far more important as to whether CAP3 gets Drought or not, so I'm fine with Water Absorb not being slated until later.
 
Throwing my support behind a few abilities:

Drought - at first, I felt quite against Drought, but I've come to like the idea a little more. Certainly I agree that Dry Skin is probably still the superior ability outside of a dedicated sun team, even with the inherent power of sun-boosted STAB Fire Blast off 131 SpA, though perhaps that's my defensive playstyle talking there. Obviously Drought CAP3 completely eclipses Drought Ninetails, but eh, that's not really an argument against it.

Water Absorb - obviously a lesser version of Dry Skin, but it's a nice option to retain a Water immunity while not killing yourself in sunlight. I doubt it'd be used a great deal, though.

Suction Cups - definitely leaning into niche territory here, but I think it'd be an excellent way to explore the concept. CAP3 sacrifices its Water immunity for the ability to act as a bulky status-absorber that can't be phazed out or whittled down by residual damage outside of the slow sandstorm/hail. If CAP3 has any boosting moves at all (certainly Coil keeps cropping up at the very least), then you'd better watch out. Anybody here swept with/been swept by Curse Cradily? As I said, it'd certainly be a niche ability, but one that carries with it awesome potential that has yet to be fully explored. It even fits in flavour-wise with plenty of the art I've been seeing, but I guess I'm not supposed to mention that here :)


Abilities I could go either way on:

Intimidate - eh... I liked it at first glance, but then I took a second look at the threats list. Jury's still out on this one for me; it lets CAP3 break past its usual counters without too much trouble. Suction Cups gives it that potential too, but at least with SC it has to spend a turn or two setting up first.

Adaptability - it emphasises the typing a little more, true, but I still don't see anybody using Poison STAB even with an extra 4/3 multiplier on the damage. In other words, this multiplies the damage of Fire-type attacks from CAP3 by 4/3. Drought's sunlight multiplies the damage from Fire-type attacks by 2 and also removes the Water weakness. It's a nice idea, though, and if somebody can show how Adaptability actually might see Poison STAB being used, then I wouldn't mind this being the secondary ability.

Limber / Insomnia / Vital Spirit / Magma Armor - another interesting round of abilities, making CAP3 into a respectable status-platform. Magma Armor would definitely be in the realm of non-competitive ability, but I included it for the sake of completion. Water Veil and Immunity were left out for obvious reasons.

Pure Power / Huge Power - veeeeeery interesting indeed. Sacrifice that immunity and healing potential for a mixed attacker with offenses like Darmanitan and Heatran rolled into one. Slap on a Choice Scarf or a Life Orb and that funny Fire / Poison Pokémon that everybody laughed at is suddenly slapping your cores in the face. I'm quite tempted by this possibility, to be honest, but the very comparison I made to Darmanitan and Heatran makes me feel like this might be a bit much. PP/HP are massively potent abilities; they got banned over in Balanced Hackmons for a good reason.


Abilities I don't support:

Regenerator - I dunno quite what it is, but I really don't like the idea of Regenerator on CAP3. I suppose the idea is to help mitigate entry hazard damage, so that this ability solves the typing's issues in a different way, but... Regenerator CAP3 would essentially form a slower but more powerful special Mienshao. We already know that LO + Regenerator makes a powerful combination. I'm hardly forming a compelling argument here, I know, but it just feels wrong and doesn't seem to fit CAP3...

Motor Drive / LightningRod - eh. I saw them being mentioned as a possible choice on a rain team, but would it really be worth using over Dry Skin, even on a team commonly filled with Electric weaknesses? I suppose it'd be nice to have an Electric immunity that doesn't die instantly to a Grass attack (lookin' at you, Gastrodon), but it feels a little irrelevant.
 
Asylum Rhapsody said:
Additionally, I want to address the bold section:
If that's the case, if that's your argument, then why on earth should we ever consider giving it Drought?
Because you're taking my arguments in a vacuum, whereas a user like erisia didn't and thus grasped my argument wholly (though you should still listen up, erisia, as this post addresses your concerns too). As far as competitive abilities go, it is only worth it to consider abilities on par to Dry Skin as competitive. We can say with absolute certainty that many of these abilities suggested here will be totally worthless by comparison to Dry Skin, and thus may as well be non-competitive by contrast. The difference between Water Absorb and Drought is massive; Water Absorb could only conceivably exist as better than Dry Skin under one condition, which is in sunlight. Thus, competitively, it only makes sense that the focal argument behind Water Absorb as a competitive secondary ability is: "I want to use CAP 3 exactly as we currently do, but in sunlight." The issue here is that in the role of a Water Absorber or Water-resist in general is completely eclipsed in sunlight; CAP 3 otherwise sucks a lot by comparison to something like Latias or Dragonite or even Jellicent.

To compare, giving CAP 3 Drought is a philosophical decision; it is essentially saying that while achieving the concept perfectly and totally matching our threat list, we simultaneously want to explore previously unseen ground in CAP by making a Pokemon which will, undoubtedly, unseat the terrible Ninetales' throne. In doing so, we no longer try to make CAP 3 good in sun and fail, we give CAP 3 an undeniable and pivotal role in sun as a strategy in the very basest of forms. Yes, as jas says, this will undeniably make CAP 3 OU thanks to its typing and ability combination, which mind is the goal, and will give us a lot of very interesting stuff to talk about both in the remaining stages of CAP 3 and when CAP 3's playtest is happening and done. It will result in a far more productive and meaningful CAP than otherwise would exist with Dry Skin alone, and I think that is true particularly because of how vastly different CAP 3's Dry Skin and Drought roles would be. One never outclasses the other; they are totally different beasts packed into the same Pokemon. We get so much more mileage in an exploratory manner out of our CAP this way than any other way. It is an eloquent way to further the goals of the CAP project in numerous ways at once, and that is why I support Drought.

Hopefully that gives you better insight into my view.
 
Additionally I think a status immunity ability such as Vital Spirit could be interesting. Once again, it may seem vastly inferior to Dry Skin, and it probably is, but I don't think that is a bad thing. I think the key with this second ability is to give it some options outside of rain. The ability to become a general status move absorber could be a cool way to approach this, especially since it has the power to threaten most Pokemon who would be throwing status moves around.
I agree and I REALLY like the interesting niche it would have with limber or vital spirit.


Arena trap would, similarly, make use of the resistances that it already has to counter statusing walls like Dusknoir and Blissey/Chansey
 
I really disagree with the idea that ability 2 needs to be greater than or equal to ability 1. I mean, we had an ability discussion, we chose Dry Skin, and we chose a stat spread with Dry Skin in mind (even if RD had Drought in mind when he made it the voters sure didn't). It seems rash to choose an ability that takes CAP3 in such a radically different direction. It's like we're making an ice cream sundae and we're so afraid that one topping will be eclipsed by another that we'd rather cover it with mounds of stuff until the original ice cream is barely noticeable than allow one layer to be less awesome than the others. Realistically, not every stage of the CAP process is as important as every other. I think we will end up with a more focused final product if we choose an ability that provides CAP3 with a niche, rather than opening up an entirely type of team, the way introducing a Sun starter that is viable in its own right would do. As an example of the radical shift that Drought would introduce, consider our choices of STAB. We do remember why the majority of spreads had great SpA, right? It was because our primary STAB was likely to be Sludge Bomb/Wave. Well, Fire Blast in sun is actually twice as strong as Sludge Bomb; we should be careful before we decide to turn "bulky mon that maintains offensive presence despite shitty STAB" into "bulky nuke that fires off 180-210 BP attacks (before STAB) with no setup". And although Drought CAP3 would expand the types of viable Sun teams, I think the "forcing you to run a sun team" thing is a pretty dramatic shift too.

Drought isn't necessarily against the concept (Fire types are good in Sun, therefore Drought accentuates the strengths of the typing blah blah) but if we choose it the concept may as well have been "a replacement for Ninetales that's actually good". If the sun went away when CAP3 switched out, then it would be hands down the best ability for CAP3 (and we'd likely have chosen it first and given it stats accordingly). Being, however, that permaweather is basically the most powerful support that a pokemon can provide it's teammates, we'd be overshadowing the idea of a pokemon that excels because of its "bad" typing by making it excel because it can undo your opponent's amazing support while providing amazing support of its own. I have to admit that I would kind of like to see a CAP weather starter which fixes one of the lesser weathers. However, trying to do so with this CAP runs the risk of turning it into an epic mealtime creation. I would rather not dump nacho cheese all over this thing. It's not because I don't like nacho cheese; it's because I want us to be able to taste the bacon. I would much rather add seasoning with Abilities 2+3 than create a whole new focal point after choosing stats to go with one that is almost completely different (I say almost because both address Water).

And because so many replies from the Drought camp have followed the formula "you're arguing wrong, you're only allowed to argue because of x", I feel the need to point out that I am not trying to get Drought disqualified with this post. I'm just trying to add to the discussion.
 
I still can't emphasize enough that Drought would be taking the CAP in the wrong direction. Yes, I'm full aware of how differently it would play from Dry Skin CAP 3. Yes, I know that it's a competent ability. The problem with these it excels too far in both aspects.

First, consider our concept here. The point of CAP 3 is to explore its typing to see what its capable of if used in an unorthodox way. In this case, we're seeing what the potential is of using a Fire-type to counter Water-types while promoting using Poison-type as an offensive type. Dry Skin completely satisfies all of that, countering Water-types and making use of Poison-typing in the rain. Now, let us look at Drought. Drought counters Water-types, yes, but suddenly we're emphasizing its Fire-type attack way, WAY past its Poison-type attack. We'd be isolating a Fire-type into using sunlight. Does that sound unorthodox to you? Furthermore, we'd be setting up our CAP to be only useful in two weathers--Sun and Rain. Will we really learn anything from only exploring weather we certainly already know?

Second, weather abilities of themselves are too centralizing. The addition of two new Pokemon entering OU--I repeat, only two--have made the entire 5th Generation centralized over weather wars. Both of these Pokemon, Ninetales and Politoed, are undeniably mere fodder in OU without their abilities Drought and Drizzle. Nobody would use Politoed in serious, competitive environment if it could not set up permanent rain. The same goes for Ninetales, but here we are in a metagame where these faces pop up all the time. The same case can be made for Hippowdon and Abomasnow--if not for their abilities, they would be considerably much lower in tier than BL. If weather starting abilities are this centralizing to the point of bring Pokemon up a tier or two just from having one alone, then explain to me, why wouldn't such an ability completely overshadow the other concepts of CAP 3?

Lastly, a Drought set would be used way more frequently than Dry Skin, which is a bad thing considering Drought would only be our secondary ability. If there was a scenario where CAP 3 was fighting another CAP 3, then the one with Drought will almost always win fighting one with Dry Skin. Given how often our newest CAPs are used in our CAPmon servers during the first time span of a CAP being completed, that will be extremely discouraging for the players that don't use the Drought variant. As such, playtesting would turn much more into seeing who could build the team that uses sunlight the best rather than how to make the best use of CAP 3's anti-Water-type characteristics. Maybe we'd start to mold into the latter as CAP 3 finds less frequent use, but until then we'd be accomplishing very little to be answering the questions that inspired the CAP in the first place. Considering that rain would only have Politoed while sun would have both CAP 3 and Ninetales, this would effectively just start the emphasis of more sunlight and considerably less rain. In term, that would diminish rain-users and Water-types a significant amount and instead call upon a greater use of sandstorm than we already have, which would ironically remove the original purpose of the CAP altogether. In short, we'd have less rain, more sun, and more sandstorm. Politoed would be wiped out as Ninetales and CAP 3 care less about rain and more on countering Tyranitar and Hippowdon. How does any of that promote Dry Skin over Drought?

Again, I ask that all of you in support of Drought answer my above questions, as well as elaborate to me how Drought would contribute to answering the following:


-What does it take for a Pokemon to overcome its "bad typing" so much that its typing becomes good? Are the stats the biggest contributer, is the ability the thing that saves it, does movepool make it a force, or is it a combination of the above?

-How does the typing makeover effect the Pokemon's playstyle? Does the Pokemon become a unique wall that uses its makeover to overcome its typing's normally fatal flaws, does the make over make a terrible offensive typing into a fearsome sweeper, does the makeover make it into a formidible combination of deffense and offense to a typing that brings it neither, or does the makeover bring forth something none of us see coming from the typing?

-Which resistances and immunities are the most relevant to the metagame? Sure, this concept is aiming to have a "bad typing" become good, but part of that will require the bad typing to have some key resistances and/or immunties to certain typings to defend against or set up on, while still having a very unorthodox competitive typing. This works the other way around too, what are the typings most relevant to hit super effectively or at least neutral?

-How will the rest of the OU metagame react to this extreme type makeover? Will Pokemon start carrying moves they normally wouldn't carry to break through a new defensive threat, will some Pokemon take on new defensive roles due to resisting the unorthodox STABs CAP 3 may carry? Or will This Pokemon, despite being a very real threat, not have many "custom made sets" to beat it, being more of a Pokemon that is a reaction to the metagame than causing a metagame reaction?

-Finally, how will this effect the teams CAP3 is on? Will this be the kind of Pokemon who needs a lot of support to become a threat, will this Pokemon be more of key team member to execute another strategy, or will this be the kind of Pokemon that's part of the glue that holds the team together?
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
I really disagree with the idea that ability 2 needs to be greater than or equal to ability 1. I mean, we had an ability discussion, we chose Dry Skin, and we chose a stat spread with Dry Skin in mind (even if RD had Drought in mind when he made it the voters sure didn't). It seems rash to choose an ability that takes CAP3 in such a radically different direction. It's like we're making an ice cream sundae and we're so afraid that one topping will be eclipsed by another that we'd rather cover it with mounds of stuff until the original ice cream is barely noticeable than allow one layer to be less awesome than the others. Realistically, not every stage of the CAP process is as important as every other. I think we will end up with a more focused final product if we choose an ability that provides CAP3 with a niche, rather than opening up an entirely type of team, the way introducing a Sun starter that is viable in its own right would do. As an example of the radical shift that Drought would introduce, consider our choices of STAB. We do remember why the majority of spreads had great SpA, right? It was because our primary STAB was likely to be Sludge Bomb/Wave. Well, Fire Blast in sun is actually twice as strong as Sludge Bomb; we should be careful before we decide to turn "bulky mon that maintains offensive presence despite shitty STAB" into "bulky nuke that fires off 180-210 BP attacks (before STAB) with no setup". And although Drought CAP3 would expand the types of viable Sun teams, I think the "forcing you to run a sun team" thing is a pretty dramatic shift too.
Just gonna go over a few things I disagree with here.

First: I don't think making a second ability that goes in a different direction from the first a bad thing at all. Choosing drought would be the best way to explore the other side of the typing (which I believe strongly is what we should be trying to do with our second ability) as it shows how cap3 would use its typing to become a successful offensive threat (which is a major question asked within the concept) since I think we've already shown that it can be a successful defensive threat with dry skin.

Secondly: drought will not make cap3 overly powerful. Although it will be very good on offense, the lack of full water type immunity makes cap3 weak to many more ou threats. Just as an example, assuming cap3 is given specs and full special attack investment with a positive nature, it would take 62-73% damage from specs politoed under the sun. I understand that cap3 would be able to hit back much much harder but it still shows how it's not going to be invincible at all.

Thirdly and lastly: "forcing you to run a sun team" really wouldn't be all that dramatic of a shift for cap3. Dry skin is nearly forcing you to run a rain team(i can't see a good reason to give up a chance at extra recovery) so it goes along with the idea that cap3 will likely rely on some weather support to bring out its typings strengths and be a viable option in ou
 
@ Yarnus of Bethany: "If the community wanted drought, they could have voted for it." The only thing that was decided was that Dry Skin was voted over Drought. It's completely understandable that people would vote Dry Skin over Drought, even if they also wanted Drought. In fact, it strikes me as kind of symbolic... (Obviously, the reasons to vote Dry Skin over Drought are very different from the reasons to use Dry Skin over Drought, but I digress.) As for the rest of that post... uh, what did I just say? :/

@ Scoopapa: All I was getting at with my posts was that we should be honest about what is our preference and what is an objective argument that can be supported or refuted. The Drought supporters have their reasons, and the Drought opponents have theirs. I've just been a bit miffed because people have been saying the same thing over and over again, not convincing anybody, and certainly not actually adding to the discussion.

I agree, it would be great to provide CAP 3 with a niche, and Ability 2 doesn't have to be at least as good as Dry Skin. However, it should be a niche that people will actually use, otherwise we're just inconveniencing the artists imo. We have many examples in OU now where a Hidden Ability has completely eclipsed an existing good ability that Pokémon used to have (e.g. Tentacruel). Bronzong also comes to mind; it almost solely uses Levitate, despite Heatproof also looking like a good ability on its own (and maybe it actually is, but only a future CAP can determine that now...).

---

I'm also going to go ahead and repeat the description of the concept:

"The idea here is to create a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point of the Pokemon itself via help from an ability, stats, and/or movepool."

There is nothing about using the typing in an unorthodox way there. Period. If we do something zany with the typing, that should be a byproduct, not the goal of the project. At least, that's how I see it.
 
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