CAP 4 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

1. What should the build of our Pokemon be? (eg. Bulky offensive, hyper defensive, etc)

We should be very defensive here and make sure Cap 4 won't fall easily, but not give it any huge tools to stave off opponents.The reason I'm suggesting this is to try not to make this Cap not just another glass cannon is mostly because quite a few successful sweepers aren't very durable as is, and I believe that in order to learn the most possible we should go in a different direction.

2. What facet of strategy should this Pokemon's focus be on? (eg. Support, hyper offence, etc)

I believe support would be the best option as a plain out wall with almost no attack (Hi Eviolite Chansey) has already been done quite a few times. If we give this pokemon strong support options (I'm thinking entry hazards and field conditions, as opposed to say baton pass) but don't give it anything that can threaten many pokemon at once (no powerful stab move with special attack to back it up, you'd need a super effective move to do damage).

3. In which parts of the process should we focus on Reward, and in which should we focus on Risk? (eg. Low Speed so reliance on set-up moves, etc)

What I'm trying to aim for here is for the support options (like entry hazards or spinning for instance) balances out the risk of being set up on (or of course just killed off). I believe that is important we don't throw a ton of incentive to use the pokemon on the reward side and a it dies easily on the other in an attempt to balance it out. Similarly forcing it to have to use a set up move will probably lead to all sorts of shenanigans in an attempt to counter it (new Caps are used a lot after all) which will disrupt this. A pokemon that just doesn't have a particularly strong ability to retaliate against these things on the other hand will do a far better job of teaching us something.

I'm a little late in this thread (wanted to respond to the first half about the definition of risk :<). I hope I'm not derailing if I do a little tracking back, because I do hope to bring up one viable insight on how to define risk.

Risk, I believe, exists in different gradations. Scoopapa (and Deck Knight) already shed some light on this in his post on the first page. Risk does not have to be just turn-by-turn related, risk can also very much exist in choosing strategies through-out a match.
I'd like to take the definition of risk a little further even and say that there's an inherent risk in team-building as well. So having CAP 4 on your team as a potential risky pokemon and trying to use it well is one thing, creating CAP 4 to be defining for your entire team strategy is a much greater risk.
One small example is the Trick Room Ursaring that was mentioned earlier.

One more major example is CAP4 being used as (for example) a Tail Wind or Gravity starter, and your entire team is build around it to help CAP4 either execute it's strategy, or abuse the conditions CAP4 set-up (Can be anything, not just field conditions)

In answering Question 1 and 2 then, I'd say a pokemon almost completely built around supporting, with only minor bulk and some offensive potential could lead to very interesting options.

As the answer on 3, I don't think the risk/reward should be only tied to just having CAP4 on your team. I feel that if you built a good team synergizing well around CAP4 and only if you managed to perform your overall strategy substantially well, that you'll be able to reap the rewards from CAP4. If CAP 4 can be rewarding to have on just about any team, because it's been built around a few high-risk, high-reward scenarios that only rely on it's match-up, you inevatably have a risk that is more reliant on luck and prediction. (That one-turn decision whether to use Stone Edge or Earthquake is as much a risk calculation as it is trying to predict what to do for that one turn)
For this reason, I feel if CAP4 is primarily offensively geared, we'll end up creating a luck/prediction based kind of pokemon anyway.

Therefor, summarized, a somewhat bulky (not too bulky) pokemon very much built for team supporting and setting up conditions of whatever kind for it's team so they can win the day. The reward will come from the entire team pulling together, not just from the effect of the few turns CAP4 is in play and may have been used well.

I think it is incredibly important that this pokemon is adaptable and has a wide variety of things it can do. On the CAP server, for the testing period of this mon, almost every single person is going to be using it. Which means that almost every single person is going to be using a check for it as well. If it's supposed to be high risk, yet every single person is carrying a hard check to it, then it's going to completely fail. I think it's important that there's no universal check to it. It can have its checks and counters, but I think that its checks should depend on the set it is using. For example, gastrodon is a hard counter to our mon. But we give it Giga Drain. Now it can beat gastrodon, but this means that another move is gone, which opens up a weakness to Ferrothorn. It shouldn't be possible for one mon to completely stop it, people should have to adapt a creative way to stop this mon completely.

Personally, I think he's said it all right here.

1. What should the build of our Pokemon be? (eg. Bulky offensive, hyper defensive, etc)

When talking about risk v reward, you're inherently talking about a pokemon that in a few or even one can win you the game or lose it for you. A defensive pokemon cannot do that either way because the point of a defensive pokemon is to survive and annoy. Defensive pokemon are meant to be the safe switch in. For example, no one in their right mind would switch in a Gengar on a banded Metagross but why wouldn't they switch in their max defense Gliscor? Therefore, this CAP has to play offensively in my opinion. I know the idea of a glass cannon has been mentioned before and I fully support that. I'm new to this so I don't know if we're supposed to mention specific stats but the build of the pokemon should reflect a high BST with the majority focused into the offensive stats and speed. Now others have brought in the aspect of low speed saying that a pokemon who must take hits before doling them out represents risky gameplay. Personally, I believe that it doesn't because it means that the pokemon must be able to take some hits to function at all. The point of this CAP is to create a usable pokemon that tests the metagame and having a slow glass cannon would be absolutely pointless.


3. In which parts of the process should we focus on Reward, and in which should we focus on Risk? (eg. Low Speed so reliance on set-up moves, etc)


Reward means we're talking about a pokemon that has the ability to dole out hits left and right. Risk means those hits have to come with a catch.

My main preference is creating a CAP with low accuracy moves such as Thunder, Blizzard, and Focus Blast. This would make the pokemon intensely reliant on luck and therefore risky. On the physical side moves like Cross Chop, Egg Bomb, Mega Kick, and Iron tail.

Another idea is to build it around recoil move. Recoil moves are strong usually but they come at a clear price. Volt Tackle, Flare Blitz, and Brave Bird are great examples. And Head Smash is the perfect example having an insanely high bp, but low accuracy and heavy recoil. High Jump Kick as well.

Finally multi-hit moves always have some risk factor, each may miss crucial KOs depending on many times the move hits. Obviously this would not work with skill-link. Bone rush, tail slap, and Rock Blast pair imperfect accuracy with high potential power.


Anyways, I excluded number two, mainly b/c I felt I made my response clear in number 1.

1. What should the build of our Pokemon be? (eg. Bulky offensive, hyper defensive, etc)

A Pokemon that can take a hit from the appropriate targets is IMO the one that best personifies the risk vs rewards thing, enough bulk to take the attacks of some pokemons he should but that could be KOed easily if the user gets too risky on it's plays. Power gets interesting since by using a spread that makes so a Choice Item get some important kills that a Life Orb or any other wouldn't then it would be interesting to see what is done with that, do you lock yourself in a move knowing that some sweepers such as Dragonite could set up all over you or forfeit the power and risk lose important KO/2HKOs

2. What facet of strategy should this Pokemon's focus be on? (eg. Support, hyper offence, etc)

I like the idea of a supporting mon in two ways, the one where he has to remove someone elses counters or else that Pokemon won't be able to accomplish much, where the risk involved is that if you lose the Pokemon early without having him finish it's job then both Pokemon are rendered almost useless (ex. a mon that eliminates Breeloom, Scizor & Conk, so Terrakion can go uninterrupted)

The second is one that supports the team but at the same time has something that makes it risky for them to do their job, maybe make them so they're week to common slow Pokemon such as ferro if they're being used to set-up Trick Room, or so that they can be trapped easily by stuff like Pursuit and Dugtrio after being done with what he was supposed to do, a Pokemon whose main job is a great help for the team but has to be careful about doing it

3. In which parts of the process should we focus on Reward, and in which should we focus on Risk? (eg. Low Speed so reliance on set-up moves, etc)

I think the risk part should come to both common battle conditions and team match up the more common it is it could be to be directly tied to the riskier it is for the Pokemon, for example, being a Pokemon weak to hail it's not as big of a risk than being weak to every other weather, and being "weak" to Spikes is many times preferable than weak to SR

In the same vein, being weak to common Pokemon it's another risk that many times outpaces the reward (ex. How Scrafty, even when being a cool mon with two effective boosting sets it's used so little in both OU and UU thanks to the many common fighters in both tiers, but it's "used" as one of the most powerful sweepers in LC, the Reward of sweeping entire teams is not worth the Risk of it dying to common Pokemon in both tiers, bust in the third where the number of them is less and some issues such as it's speedand defenses are enhanced then it becomes a much better option). You risk using a Pokemon in an sometimes hostile environment but the things it gets you most of the time are far greater than the things you lose when you do

Reward should be about being able to set up your strategy without this loosing it's effect, be it eliminating the immediate treaths to your main sweeper without this being weakened enough not to sweep or setting up TR or making sure weather/hazards are off the field without getting your team woren out by them, etc...

I have a bit of a concern here about this concept, but feel absolutely free to explain to me that it's unfounded.

One of the examples mentioned earlier that worried me of a Pokemon demonstrating risk versus reward before the match even begins was Kingdra. The reasoning behind the example was that Kingdra was an amazing counter to rain teams (reward), but was only mediocre if you put it on your team and ended up facing a non-rain team (risk). What ever we decide to do here with our Riskymon, I worry very much about centering it about this particular kind of risk-ward model. Kingdra can pull it off just fine because Kingdra isn't part of an experiment specifically examining Kingdra, but if Kingdra were a CAP, then we would seldom see a rain team throughout the play-testing process.

In other words, by constructing this CAP and becoming intimately familiar with what is risky for it before we even begin using it, we may very well artificially inflate the prevalence of those risky situations to a degree that they wouldn't normally be present in if we weren't playing in a experiment specifically examining Riskymon. Sure, this happens to every CAP to some degree, but I just worry that it'll be particularly detrimental to this CAP. If we go with that Kingdra-like risk-reward model, then we may learn much less from this CAP exactly because it is a CAP.

Hey everyone, I'm Base Speed. As you can see by my post count, I'm new here.
If I may explain quickly, I've been lurking on the CAP forums from towards the end of Necturna's creation. I witnessed all of Mollux's creation and have decided to get myself involved now. (I apologise in advance if my lack of experience leads me to say something stupid).

1. What should the build of our Pokemon be? (eg. Bulky offensive, hyper defensive, etc)
A lot of people are saying hyper-offensive is a must and this is actually what's driven me to comment. I think there are better ways to interpret risk/reward than the creation of a glass cannon and I imagine that if we went down such a root, everyone would simply slap a focus sash onto CAP4 and remove much of the risk we've tried to create. I am by no means suggesting we go defensive, but I think we can make CAP4 bulky offensive and create risk from crippling flaws, for example a 4x weaknesses, as they'd be more prominent on a pokemon that actually has to take hits.

2. What facet of strategy should this Pokemon's focus be on? (eg. Support, hyper offence, etc)
I think CAP4 should be aiming to sweep. In terms of rewards, sweeping your opponent and ultimately winning the battle is as rewarding as things get. As I said before, this pokemon should have a crippling flaw and one's strategy should revolve around circumventing these flaws so that it can sweep. Then, if one fails to take out CAP4's counters, not only will they find themselves with a useless pokemon, but other members of their team may have fainted in this failed attempt. For me, that would be not only riskier, but more exciting than a 'mon that needs either choice or setup to sweep.

3. In which parts of the process should we focus on Reward, and in which should we focus on Risk? (eg. Low Speed so reliance on set-up moves, etc)
Personally, I think most aspects of the process could embody both risk and reward in it.

Typing, for example, could easily have both risk and reward - if we pick a typing that has a plethora of good resistances but also some nasty weaknesses, one has both risk and reward in one aspect of the process.
I'm fond of one of these types being poor offensively so that CAP4 has to rely on just 1 STAB type, as this will increase it's potential counters and thus increase risk.
Steel/ice, for example, would do this well. CAP4 would be blessed with a good ice STAB useful resistances to moves like Pursuit and U-turn as well as hail and sandstorm resistance (good rewards), but would perpetually fear fighting, ground and fire moves and as I previously suggested would make little use of it's secondary STAB (big risks).

Giving CAP4 a big imbalance between it's physical and special defense would also create a risky playstyle, making it require a teammate that can sponge the hits that it can't, thus creating more risk - what if the aforementioned teammate is KOed?

With all I've mentioned previously, a risky ability doesn't feel like a must have, though I'd still steer well clear of "safe" abilities - anything that increases it's ability to switch in and take attacks (eg Volt Absorb or Magic Guard) is a definite no.

Lastly, in Capefeather's original concept, he stressed that CAP4 was not about luck management. With that in mind, I would oppose creating a CAP that relies on inaccurate moves. I'm also fond of it not having reliable recovery, and instead forcing it to rely on riskier recovery moves like ingrain or rest. Given that this is quite a flaw for a bulky offensive pokemon (imagine bulkier variants of Dragonite without Roost, anyone?), a wide offensive movepool should compensate for this somewhat.



So that's my take on CAP4. Feel free to point out anything I've done wrong - I'm willing to learn, debate and take criticism. Thanks.

*can reply again if there's NEW insight to the discussion... well then, here goes*

Briefly at the log from BMB: If frail glass cannon, whether offensive or supporter, is not preferred, then a slow Pokemon is very much possible. Slow mons risk a lot - sweepers that lack Speed take a risk whether setting up or just trading blows (especially if lacking in priority) and will be on the bad end of match ups where both CAP4 and its switch in can KO each other, because of that low Speed. Similarly supporters who are slower risk getting Taunted by a wider group of Pokemon, and thus being caught unable to perform their support function right. Low Speed also suggests it could use Trick Room either to sweep or support its team; as a sweeper, TR setup is riskier than just hitting DD/QD/SS because you're on a timer, and if it's at just the awkward Speed point where it can be run in TR but is 'outslowed' by other common Pokemon (like certain slow walls, especially Ferrothorn running min. Speed for Gyro Ball) making it your Trick Roomer of choice is in itself a teambuilding risk.


There is one more route that CAP4 could take that I hadn't seen mentioned yet, but what sax king above is leading to this idea:

CAP4 could have no universal check if you're not fighting 'it' but its team support. An example of what I mean is SubAgilityPassing Jolteon (or probably more popular now SubCMPassing Espeon because of Magic Guard). Just being able to switch in and KO it won't be enough to make for a 'counter' because if it successfully passes the boost, you'll be stuck in a bad match up against a boosted mon, so a phazer or Taunter must be sent in; but if CAP4 has some offensive ability it could attack it if that choice is made, and retreat (even with dry Baton Pass) to try again later.

If CAP4 were slow too then it'd be riskier to use than other Baton Passers for this (more exposed to Taunt) but by its slow Baton Pass could take the hit for its target and allow something more fragile to enter unharmed. Its success would then largely depend on the surprise factor: CAP4 having many other options than Baton Pass would catch enemies off-guard, but that only works once, and once its set is known it is easier for the opponent to play around, losing much effectiveness. Therefore the player would be taking a 'one shot risk' independently of how fragile CAP4 actually is, or how much damage it ends up taking in practice.


There is also another kind of playstyle that combines support, offensive and risk all at once. If CAP4 was a 'situational trapper' (not one with an ability like Dugtrio, or STAB Pursuit, but one where it has to use a trapping move like Wrap or maybe Spider Web/Mean Look) that can dedicate its set to eliminating its usual counters with the right moves, and thus open up a teammate's sweep, then it's risky (or even suicidal if given, say, Memento) support that influences team building decisions (who needs taking out the most? Will CAP4 be the right lure?) as well as loses much effectiveness if it's discovered by the enemy. And its surprise would again depend on the relative popularity of being a Lure vs its other tactics.

How to define risk:
~Risk is something that gives you extremely high rewards while in the meantime having a greater possibility of backfiring.

How will we go doing this?
When considering how to make a pokemon that has high risk/high reward, we must consider 2 things- first, what REWARD do we want it to have? Do we want it to be able to hit extremely hard? Do we want it to be able to magnificently stall out the opponent? Or do we want it to be able to win any weather war without shedding a drop of sweat? Second, what RISK should we put in? Are we going to make it rely on lower accuracy moves? Are we going to force it to abuse secondary effects in order to work? Or are we going to give it a movepool/ability/typing that is so absolutely useless or negative that the thought of just using that pokemon will make people shudder?
Eventually, we will have to tie those two together somehow. Should we, make a pokemon that can sweep whole teams with ease but relies on inaccurate moves? Or should we, make a pokemon that can easily target and kill any opponent but must rely on self destruction? It's easiest to first list out ideas, and then wrap them up later, imo, so what we aim for is clear cut and how we do it is clear as well.

Bonus:
REWARDS:
~Ability to sweep easily
~Pinpointing and defeating any opponent
~Grabbing massive amounts of momentum
~Supporting a teammate for a sweep
~Severely crippling opponents for easy pickings
~WEATHER
~Walling any pokemon
~Or, smaller things such as high BP moves, instant recovery, etc etc

RISKS:
~Accuracy/Power
~Typing
~Indirect effects (ex: indirect status, stat boosts/drops, other)
~Abilities

I like the idea of CAP relying on recoil moves, however this automatically pigeon holes it into physical moves as there are no special recoil moves.

A then secondary aspect would be giving it aspect to offensive HP-draining moves such as Giga Drain or Drain punch.

The destructive/vampiric tactic is quite risky in and of itself.

To be reconciled:

Support vs. Offensive
Team-based Risk vs. Prediction-once-in Risk
Liabilities vs. Choice

I have seen a lot of good discussion here – which makes it difficult, as a TL, to really know how to proceed. There is a lot to be said for a good many avenues – there is no path that is automatically better than any other. Having said that, I think I am developing some idea of what I want our CAP to eventually turn out to look like. I am personally of the opinion that we should be trying to challenge ourselves as much as possible with this CAP (I've said that far too many times, but it still holds valid), and at the same time, I think that going down any one avenue would not really teach us anything. We could quite easily go the risky sweeper route, but this wouldn't really challenge us in the strictest sense – we could just slap Shell Smash and Simple on any given Pokemon, and the rest turns into a balancing act. Ditto for many of the other options already expressed.

I have already said that I would like to try to reconcile the various different parts of this concept, and while I think that, yes, it might be challenging or even counterintuitive, it is worth our while – we may learn more, we may find the process more difficult, and that sort of thing. As such, I want to see us create a Pokemon that does have both offensive and support qualities – and that can be, depending on role, a risk to put on the team, or a risk to use.

I will ask you to please bear with me at this point, as my sleep cycle is rather shattered at the moment and I am finding it very difficult to put my thoughts across. Don't be afraid to call me out if I'm being unclear.

What I envision seeing from this concept is as follows. We have a Pokemon who is not frail necessarily, but who has a large number of common weaknesses and – crucially – a weakness to passive damage, which creates the same effect. Thus the point of "making every switch count" is retained, while not necessarily making it too difficult for said Pokemon to switch in. A weakness to passive damage, if I'm not being clear, can be achieved in a few ways, such as susceptibility to Spikes/Toxic Spikes/sandstorm, Stealth Rock weakness, lower attacking stats which force a reliance on Life Orb or Choice items, or even forcing the use of Substitute to cover a low Speed stat. There are other ways to achieve this, of course – I am certain you will all have your own ideas on this point.

There is little to be said for the question of support vs. offensive. I am quite certain that both can be achieved, to a reasonable degree, within the same Pokemon. With reference to support, I do believe that there is a good deal to be said for capefeather's argument on viability – strategies such as Trick Room and Tailwind have more or less been proven to be, in a vacuum, far too much risk for too little reward, without there being an ability such as Persistence to increase the reward, as such. Thus, I can only see the absolute limit of Support being strategies that, while rare, still have noticeable benefits, such as DS + Memento and what not.

On the offensive side, I also want to incorporate both aspects of Risk outlined above. Based on observations made by jas, Pwnemon, Rediamond, and others, I am of the opinion that we can both have the Team-based Risk – where control of the field and other support provided by the team are rewarded by a greater probability of success once set up – as well as Prediction-once-in Risk – where there are fewer "safe" options for the Pokemon to be using, or rather, where the riskier options tend to be more rewarding than the safe ones. Personally, I see that we can achieve the former through any set-up sets – which would be extremely effective once set up but difficult to get to that stage – and the latter through any non-boosting sets we may have. This could potentially be quite easily achieved through having both powerful attacks with drawbacks alongside more reliable moves, for sets where the power isn't needed quite so much.

That's all I really have to say at present. Keep on going, you're all doing a fantastic job thus far.

yes, bmb and i (and jas) had a very interesting discussion on irc last night. If you don't want to read the conversation (which i almost guarantee you don't) then i've boiled down the gist of our conclusions (note: not incontrovertible) right here:

• There are three main ways to create risk:
• Probability Risk, which involves such things as relying on hax, running inaccurate moves, or team matchup-based usefulness (for example, packing a Gastrodon for the sole purpose of handling Rain would be a probability risk because it depends on whether the opponent carries Rain). Bmb told me (and i agree) that due to its uncontrollable and relatively low-depth nature, probability risk will not be explored by this Project.
• Prediction Risk, which involves reading your opponent's moves and then choosing the correct response to the situation. This type of risk is typically the one that most balances the concepts of "safety" vs "reward," and the one that encourages ballsy play. Examples of Prediction risk include switch-in opportunities, such as bringing out a pokemon into a resisted hit when it could be smacked by a super effective one instead, or predicting a switch and using a move that hits the switch-in. While every pokemon does this with its sets to varying degrees, there are ways to make a Pokemon more prone to this type of risk, such as Sucker Punch, Focus Punch, anything Substitute, etc.
• The third type of risk doesn't have a commonly accepted name; in our conversation we called it Intensive Team Risk but i think that a better name may be Liability Risk. This is the risk that people have referred to as "teambuilding risk." It refers to the fact that a pokemon will either be a major asset in a battle or completely, utterly useless. This type of risk is what happens when a Pokemon needs lots of team support (e.g. morning sun volcarona). This risk is amplified by a pokemon becoming more integral to a team's success; backup "win conditions" are what reduce/mitigate this risk. Some things that add to this risk are: weather dependency, prevalence of hard counters, hazard or status weakness - basically any scenario in which x requirement must be fulfilled for y mon to function at peak capacity fulfills this. Again, all pokemon have this risk in varying amounts. Alternatively, liability risk can occur when the mon itself doesn't rely on the team, but rather that if the mon fails to execute its role, the team completely crumbles into dust (Think Deoxys-S HO). It's important to note the distinction between Liability Risk and Probability Risk when it comes to team matchups - liability risk is determined by how much your team benefits your Pokemon, whereas Probability Risk is determined by how much your Opponent's team benefits your Pokemon.
• The more, the merrier, it was decided, and thus, neither Prediction Risk nor Liability Risk are to be excluded from the discussion. It doesn't necessarily mean that CAP4 has to embody both of these principles (though it would be cool if it did). It means it /can/ embody both of these principles, though. The primo example of a pokemon that embodies liability risk is Shedinja. The primo example of a pokemon that embodies prediction risk is the Kecleon set with Magic Coat / Snatch / Sucker Punch / Focus Punch. Ideally, CAP4 would be neither extreme, but somewhere in the middle. (and better than either)
• Once we had more or less laid out the definitions of risk, we began to brainstorm what types of pokemon best embodied risk. Right off the bat bmb ruled out glass cannons, a decision with which i'm inclined to agree. HO pokemon don't really fulfill this requirement too much - they're rather mindless to play as well as typically not being very essential to a team's play. they don't really actually embody riskiness that well, when you come to think about it. Another archetype we ruled out was slow, bulky support or walls. These Pokemon, such as Ferrothorn, tend to be played more cautiously, and making risky bulky support just didn't seem to make much sense to anyone.
• So then the question was what pokemon SHOULD we make? We determined basically three things that would probably be one of the roads that CAP4 would go down: fast, moderately frail support; slow and frail, yet offense; or bulky boosting. An example of the first category would be something like Deoxys-S or a Taunt Lead Terrakion. The second category would be exemplified by Breloom or Honchkrow. The third category can be seen in Reuniclus or Scrafty.
• The last thing we discussed (briefly) was typing. The general consensus was that the typing would have to be risky - that is, have some major upshots that could be capitalized on, but also major downsides that would bite you in the ass with one wrong turn. I imagine this will be expanded upon greatly in the next thread to come.

Now that's a basic summary of what we discussed in the chatlog bmb posted, but remember that just because i got to have an hour of discussion with the TL does not mean what's in this post is word of god (actual word of god, from BMB, has been put in bold for your convenience). it's just my speculations with the help of BMB and jazzers.


As for some of the points that we talked about that we disagreed on, i'd like to make my own case:


FIRST, about risk. I would definitely like a good combination of liability risk and prediction risk. I think it would make a more interesting Pokemon to use, not to mention a more interesting one to make, with the balancing act it provides. The added challenge would be to produce a mon that's risky but still worth the payoff - i feel like toxicroak is an example of the "breaking point" here. His bulk up set is a great example of risk - Liability Risk in needing rain up, needing to avoid status, needing phazers removed, and needing setup bait lured; Prediction Risk in needing to come in safely and knowing when to use his moveset of sub/bu/sucker punch/drain punch at the proper times.

One thing i don't like is the idea of Liability Risk in which the Pokemon is necessary to set up the rest of your team's strategy - i don't want to be making a Politoed. First, I feel that it will just turn into a "let's make gravity/hail/trick room good" which is... meh at best, and doesn't really explore risk. Second, it makes the risk dependent on the rest of the team's setup, and not on the mon itself. It would be perfectly viable to run a CAP4 with this kind of goal and experience little risk at all.


SECOND, about role. i feel that a fast support is not as good of an idea as jas does. much as i'd like to continue the whole cap parallel thing up through #4, fast support doesn't seem like it can do it. The only way to do support risky is to make a Pokemon that uses its presence to force switches, then takes those free switches to do support-y things, which it otherwise couldn't do. However, i'm afraid that there's only two options for this: 1) Its offensive options become better in general than its support options and it lapses into sweeping (see syclant) which we already said we don't want to do, or else its support options become better in general than its offensive options and it becomes safe or else just plain bad (see fidgit or deo-s). I don't think there is a line to walk in which the two are in perfect harmony.

I feel that Slow Offense (Breloom, Toxicroak, RU Honchkrow, NU Cacturne) is the best way to take this concept because it really forces the user to think when using the mon, and to truly make the /best play/ every step of the way. furthermore, these do require a decent amount of team support to be used to the fullest of their potential, but are typically the most rewarding to use and difficult to stop once the snowball gets rolling. I think this embodies risky business perfectly.

EDIT: jesus fuck how do you get ninja'd by BMB of all people

after reading pwnemon's post i decided it would be a good idea to begin discussing the 3 likely directions that this cap is going to follow. (as he said, this isn't definite and more suggestions can be made but i thought it was a good place to start)

The first suggestion was for fast, moderately frail support. I like this idea a lot as support is something i think exemplifies the goal of this cap very well but if it is too bulky it will become a safe switch, protect staller, and many other un-risky things eg. gliscor blissey etc. Choosing specific, potentially highly rewarding support at proper times is something that would take skill on the part of the user, which makes it risky right away. add to that the inability to just spam support and have long term survivability and this becomes a very interesting option. I really like the idea for support and a fast and somewhat frail variant seems like the best way to go to keep risk involved and to enhance the potential reward.

The second suggestion was slow and frail, yet offensive. I think this is probably the most promising of any suggestion thus far. The examples of breloom and toxicroak are perfect because they show the blueprint for how this would have to work. 1) access to a priority move. 2) unique typing giving it key resistances but also having key weaknesses. 3) an ability that helps it overcome its mediocre stats. I think venusaur is another good example since it relies on weather to become effective. I think the best part about this option is it allows us to select a specific, unique typing and ability combination to best fill a niche in the current metagame.

The final suggestion was bulky boosting. This is something i've been opposed to since the beginning since i can't really see the risk involved in using a pokemon that boosts its stats. its guaranteed to work if you get the boost off (and strategies such as encore and voltturn make it very easy to get favorable switches to get easy boosts). the stats will be tailor made for it to get the most out of its stat boost and it will be tearing things apart after a single swords dance or rock polish. maybe a less overpowering boosting move such as calm mind could alleviate this but this would still not be a very risky option in my opinion.

I'm sorry to backtrack a little, just wanted to put a thought in that's been repeated by others before. Let's say we go all the way in Risk versus Rewards. What is the best reward in a Pokemon match? You win the battle. What is the ultimate risk? That you will lose. Along the way, there are many smaller, more subtle steps (gaining momentum, setting up, etc. etc.) but the end goal is there. So I think that's what we can attempt in CAP4's concept - Something, be it a strategy or a Pokemon, that ensures victory at the end when pulled off, be it for you (when you did it right), or your opponent (when you screwed up). The focus doesn't even have to be on CAP4-mon itself, it could come from something akin to Voodoom's concept (a support or a vital part of a core). I think that's why cape dislikes bandying about the term "prediction" - it gives off quite an impression that prediction outcomes are very short-termed.

So for me, its not that important to flesh out the facet of strategy we're going to focus on with CAP4. As saxking said:

So if we could set off along the path that has flip sides (either being Harmless Momentum-Giving Great-Wall, or be Hard-To-Setup-Attacker) that does make every switch, even every turn count. DK's Rhyperior model is an illustration of one side of this road, but there is the obstacle that cape pointed out, that some strategies are simply not viable in OU because the reward does not merit the risks.

Therefore, I think "every switch has to count" could merit being the risk we have to take, since BMB has been leaning towards it thus far (?). In this, I propose that CAP4-mon can execute a variety of specific strategies that works against different opponents, kind of like Mollux (do I spin right away, HP Fight that potential Ttar, or Thunder the potential Pringles?) which, when applied correctly, provides a huge step ahead towards gaining the end victory. In this case, the reward being the elimination or crippling of an opponent's strategies, leading towards winning the match.

Support "Risk" Can also be defined as a Baton Passer, You have Great Offensive Stats but Horrible Speed and Bulk for a Passer/Attacker, but Being outspeed by alot of stuff And most of those Pokemon Can use Taunt/Kill You, its a Risk V Reward, So For Example, If X vs LO Aerodactyl, Would you be able to pass/hit something? or Will you not? Same thing goes for Pokemon Which can run Different Sets (Tank, Wall, Physical, Set-up, Special, Mix,Etc) For Example, Luke is out on the field VS Y, (assume Y takes enough damage to be killed by CC and Vacuum Wave But not Espeed (2x weak to Fighting)
Certain Scenarios
-Take a Risk and use A SE Move that would kill
-Take a Risk, and Die because He uses Priority Vacuum Wave
-Switch Out, and avoid Priority move from Luke
-Switch Out, Luke Sets up SD or NP
-Switch Out, Luke Switches Out.
-Take A Risk, Use SE Move, Luke Switches Out (This would be bad because the Luke Player knows you have a Coverage move and now will play more carefully to avoid Dying)

I am a bit concerned that many participants in this thread aren't taking into account the step-by-step nature of the CAP process, and what impact that will have on our ability to achieve a specific end goal with this pokemon. The Concept Assessment thread is the place where we look ahead and try to set a general course for the project. But remember that even with a very strong guiding hand from the TL, it is practically impossible to pull off anything subtle or specific.

CAP projects navigate by the stars, not with a GPS -- if that makes any sense. We set a general course forward and try to get there, with help from the TL and a few course corrections along the way, when we realize we have veered too far from the chosen path. We really have no way to make specific things happen, for a few reasons:

1) By rule, we MUST have multiple choices on every step.
With multiple choices, it makes it very hard to keep the project on any specific line. And despite all the vociferous arguing by a knowledgeable few about the "best" option to pick, remember that every poll is open to the masses to vote. Many of these voters do not read threads closely, and many do not have a very good understanding of competitive pokemon. So don't get your heart set on any specific choice, because in almost every case, the community will throw some curveballs with their votes.

This causes a lot of frustration with some of our more knowledgeable participants, and often makes the TL pull their hair out. But keep in mind, if we didn't have a big open community project, then none of you reading this would even be here. The CAP project would be a small clique of me and a few friends making our own fakemons and playing with them on my server. That's not what we are doing here. CAP is open to everyone, and we have to live with the fact that large groups of people rarely make the "best" decision. The phrase "design by committee" is a negative reference for a reason, and it applies to the CAP project.

In the past, there have been some accusations that TL's have unfairly stacked slates in a step with a single viable option and then provided a few unreasonable options that no one would vote for anyway. I'm not saying those accusations were true, but we have had TL's that have been a bit overzealous in "guiding" the project at times. Rest assured that we never condone restricting choices to the point where there really is no choice at all. So if anyone is hoping that perhaps BMB can pull off something specific by manipulating slates, that isn't going to happen (and I'm not saying BMB would ever attempt it).

2) We can't go back and "redo" a step because of a later decision.
Once again, this is just the nature of the beast when it comes to the CAP project. Sometimes the community chooses something that, had we known the choice earlier, we would have made different decisions on previous steps. That's just too bad for us when that happens. We have to keep moving forward, and do the best we can with the steps in front of us. If we don't, then we'll never get through the project.

3) After this thread closes, we will not be able to look ahead and discuss future steps.
That's called "poll-jumping", and it will get you infracted. You cant post comments like "I support ABC typing, assuming that XYZ ability is chosen later." You can't even mention a general class of abilities during a previous step. During the typing step, you can only discuss typing. Every step is that way. We discovered a long time ago that big group discussions have to be restricted to the step at hand, otherwise we get a big jumbled mess of arguments and positions. Future steps are completely out-of-bounds the minute this thread closes, and that makes it impossible to engineer any specific chain of decisions to achieve a competitive effect.


With all that in mind, we need to make sure that we don't just think of the best way to achieve the concept, but more importantly -- think of the best direction that the community will actually be able follow, considering all the inherent limitations I listed above. If you have a great idea of how to pull this pokemon off, but it requires a series of relatively narrow choices to be made perfectly by the community, you are setting us up for failure. I know Bob knows this, I'm putting this out there for the rest of you, if you haven't considered it up to this point.

I have seen a lot of discussion about what we want to achieve, but I have seen very little discussion about the merits of those goals in terms of the overall CAP process and our ability to actually pull it off. BMB has been listing questions related to the process, and I suspect he is carefully considering the path we take, because he knows every CAP project is a balancing act between what is best, and what is achievable. Many others in this thread, particularly those of you that would like to get more involved in CAP and possibly be a TL yourself someday, start "thinking like a TL" and consider the operational factors of the CAP project, and not just the pokemon we are building.

By risk, I don't really think of it as a specific battle style, I really just think of it as fearing a certain battle style or action by your opponent. One thing that really comes to mind is the fact that wailord is decimated by energy ball, a move that can be learned by a surprising amount of pokemon. Now obviously we don't want a NU-power pokemon running around our CAP server. Think of it as a pokemon that is incredible, except for one or two flaws. Ninjask would be great if not for stealth rock and taunt. Tyranatar is torn apart by a rare move: grass knot. Quiver Dance users have nightmares about Psych Up (and Heart Swap).
1. What should the build of our Pokemon be? (eg. Bulky offensive, hyper defensive, etc)
This pokemon is probably going to work best as a set up pokemon. If an opponent can stop the CAP from preparing the team properly, then it could be a quick loss for the CAP team, but if the CAP succeeds, the team just might be unstoppable.
2. What facet of strategy should this Pokemon's focus be on? (eg. Support, hyper offence, etc)
Some bulk is going to be necessary to keep this pokemon alive, but not enough that it's weakness cannot be exploited.
3. In which parts of the process should we focus on Reward, and in which should we focus on Risk? (eg. Low Speed so reliance on set-up moves, etc)
Reward should definitely be laid out in moves and abilities, with typing, stats, and other obscure things such as weight open to take on the risk.

If my post made no sense at all, I apologize.

Hmm.

At this point, I feel it's worth just putting my most vague of thoughts down so that you all know exactly what I'm thinking as this thread moves on to its later stages. Bear in mind that, in some form or another, these will be defining of our CAP to come (or rather, they will be what I consider when choosing a slate).

• On Risk and Reward: As many have mentioned, the highest possible reward for the use of a particular Pokemon would be winning the battle, overall – as such, there should be an above average chance to succeed in this endeavour, provided that certain conditions are met first. These certain conditions should not be anything to do with the opposing team – it doesn't particularly teach us anything if our CAP is stopped cold by Element X, because that is really entirely beyond the control of the user. If we go this route, we may as well give it Focus Blast / Stone Edge / Gunk Shot / Hypnosis and be done with it. This is not to say that the opposing team will not impact upon the effectiveness of the strategy at all, because that would be impossible. But it should be the responsibility of the user to ensure that the risky strategy is executed properly. Now, there are multiple ways in which a win can be generated, but the two most obvious ones are a) sweeping and b) supporting a sweep. This is not to say that there are not others (see below).
• On Bulk: I stand by my notes last time that I do not want a glass cannon, or at least not a glass cannon on its own, to come from this. Having said that, at the same time I want this to be a Pokemon where every switch-in has to be carefully considered – this can be achieved in a number of ways, which I have gone into before, so no need to repeat here. What matters is that this Pokemon has some combination of typing and stats that renders it very susceptible to being comparatively useless should it come in on the wrong move, but not so much that the Pokemon is unusable – the two ways I have thought this could be most easily achieved are through having a relatively bulky Pokemon with many weaknesses, or a relatively frail Pokemon with many resistances. But of course, I leave that in the expert hands of all those people who suggest typing and stats. I personally lean towards the former because it generally means less of a priority weakness – (see below). As for the other stats, which people have been going back and forth on, I am less convinced at present, other than that there has to be some balance that means that the reward has to be worth the risk – a high Attack stat means little if this Pokemon cannot use it to its full potential. Similarly, a high Speed stat means nothing if we don't have a high Attack stat to pair it with.
• On Priority: Now, I've seen a lot of posts concerning a weakness to priority and its relationship to the risk/reward set-up. I am personally of the opinion that a priority weakness should not be a focus or even a consideration, though I will stop short of saying that priority should be actively neutered against this Pokemon. Priority has become so ubiquitous that, in my view, just saying, "prepare against priority users" is a bit like saying, well, "prepare against Pokemon with Close Combat". There is nothing that can really be done to stop this, and as such it should be better not to deliberately engineer a priority weakness – as otherwise, the Risk significantly outweighs the Reward. All of the above is assuming, however, the phrase "priority weak" to mean being significantly damaged by non-super effective priority attacks. The same effect can still be engendered through weaknesses, as it is more controllable. It also assumes that we are not creating something like Gengar, which has adopted general stallbreaking tendencies to compensate for the fact that it can no longer really sweep or support. On the other hand, I also don't want to make CAP4 too reliant on priority as a sweeper, as it is generally only one move, which can be resisted or just plain tanked relatively easily. This is one of the reasons why I do not support having a very low Speed stat as a potential risk, especially considering that Breloom and Scizor, the only two really notable slow priority sweepers, have the strength of Technician behind them and yet do not really do very well as sweepers, largely due to how easily they can be walled or revenge killed.
• On Roles: There are ever so many many things we could do with this CAPmon, but really, we have to concentrate on one or two (though I personally would consider concentrating on only one risk-related role to be a mistake). As I said above, we have support and offensive as the different areas we want to be aiming for – as I said before, this Pokemon should be able, through whatever its efforts may be, to enable a greater chance of victory than the next best alternative, while at the same time being more volatile than the same. There are examples of significant support elements in such tactics as DS + Memento, as have been noted, but at the same time there is a good deal to be said for "risky" support moves on sets that would not ordinarily carry them – in the sense that the player using them willingly takes a risk by using a move that does not directly protect it from the incoming attack. At the same time, it should be capable of running a boosting set – which will enable it to have a high chance to sweep – as well as a set that relies on attacking without boosting, such as a wallbreaker. Importantly, this wallbreaker should not be able to sweep easily, or anything like that.

That is all I really have to say at the moment. If you want to contest anything above, please go right ahead. I am putting a 20 hour deadline on this thread, though this can be extended if any further discussion needs to be made.

With respect to bulk, since I don't have time to really be fully involved in massive discussions on this CAP (at least right now), I would like to agree with bmb and many others that a Glass Cannon is really unacceptable for this CAP to fulfill concept. Switching in is such a large aspect of "risk" in Pokemon that making any switch in a bad proposition defeats a large portion of the purpose of the concept.

Instead something with good bulk either physically or specially, bad bulk in the other, many weaknesses, and many resistances (I know this is more specific than I'd like to make at this point...) is the way to go. It makes switch-ins risky and makes for an all around more interesting concept. The classic example already mentioned of course is Rhyperior (high phys defense/low special defense, weak to water/grass/ice/ground/fighting/steel, resist rock/poison/electric/flying/fire/normal.)

I'd be totally in favor of this IDEA, though not another Rock/Ground please lol.

What if the pokemon was structured in a way that it move choices come down to a boosting move, allowing it to be able to facilitate a sweep, or gaining superior coverage that allows it to get past its original checks, but at the expense of losing the option to sweep?

Just a though.

I agree that our focus on bulk and stats should be that our CAP4 should be very inclined to be either all physical or all special, while still having the speed stat to pull of an effective sweeping/wallbreaking/supporting role. As for risk, again that would come from stats and typing. Giving it a a good amount of common weaknesses, but still giving it a few viable resistances. (As for weaknesses, a weakness to all entry hazards would make its life difficult)

I also agree that this pokemon should be able to pull of all 3 roles of sweeping, wallbreaking, or supporting, but with only with very specialized sets, and will have no way of having a Jack of all Trades set.

For priority, if we really want it, a move like Sucker Punch embodies risk. Though I agree that priority really shouldnt be necessary on this Pokemon.

I keep seeing Sucker Punch brought up and I totally agree with it. For me Pokemon like Honchkrow/Absol are some of the most fun because you constantly have to predict correctly, but the rewards for doing so are great. Since Honchkrow has been UU since its release, the risk somewhat outweighs the reward. So how do we make a similar Pokemon that can stand out in OU? Even though both of my examples are dark type I'm not trying to make presumptions on typing, or the bulk etc. But how about a Pokemon whose attacking options are more varied than merely coverage, but without resorting to safe utility attacks like U-Turn?