CAP 15 CAP 4 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

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Well, I'm relatively new to the CAP concept but i'm very impressed what all those CAP rounds have delivered as final products.

I'm aware the TL has said he wants to focus our effort on Offensive/Support roles as we make the assumption Stall/Wall ones are "safer", but maybe we are aware that is easier destroy than build.

A sweeper/wallbreaker job is to shatter any opposition the foe can offer towards victory, and in this aggresive 5th gen metagame that can be done with little effort as the overall power of the meta is greater than before, and a role that the metagame left behind was the "boosting/setup wall" because the games are now faster paced than, for example Gen 3, where CurseLax, CroCune or Amnesia Slowbro could withstand a heavy ammount of hits and stall/sweep the opposite team with the proper support.

The setup wall role is per se risky in this meta, because a misclick, a bad switch in or a lack of boosts/field conditions turns it into dead weight, but with the rigth scenario it can solo most offensive playstyle teams and could slowly break opposite walls.

On this sense not only direct stat boosts are required to succeed on this role, as passive damage (status cond., wheather, moves like Curse or Leech Seed, etc.), passive recovery (Ingrain, Aqua Ring, Type-Absorbing abilities) and disruptive moves can force the foe to work around this poke.

The closer example of what I try to picture out is Storm Drain Cradily; it has decent defensive stats boosted by the SpDef sandstorm bonus (thus inmune to it's passive damage), it has an inmmunity to a strong and common offensive type (Water), but has glaring weakneses to Figthing, Bug and Ice types. With access to Stockpile and Ingrain it can survive a nice amount of turns with the proper setup, but it's poor offensive power and coverage coupled with it's unability to protect itself from stauts like Psn or Brn shuts down it's utility, so a misplay (and the fact it isn't bulky enough without boosts) is a great disadvantage to it's trainer, and that can be worsened if it was the only Water resist on it's team.

As this concept is not restricted to the scenario/conditions set on the last paragraph it can be shaped with some other interesting variations, and maybe we could learn something interesting if CAP 4 were a viable setup wall/stall poke.

Greetings and good luck with the project.
 
I've nothing new in terms of ideas to add after what's been said. Frankly, I think we're good to go with the conclusions already reached in this topic.


However, I'd like to make one case for an offensive Pokemon that's both slow and doesn't have priority. I think the closest example of this is SubTorment Heatran, who without Choice Scarf sits at a Speed point where many common Pokemon beat him easily, but also has a typing that means most attackers will only really carry one move to deal with him. Steelix runs SubTorment similarly in the lower tiers, with either Roar/Dragon Tail for shuffling or Earthquake+Rock STAB or Gyro Ball for its offense.

It's risky to do, and once in you must continually weight your options at each turn, whether to attack, use Substitute (which costs HP) or use Torment for the combo. Pulled off right, it can leave an enemy crippled (especially last Pokemon Choice users). They both have some bulk for it however.

I'm not necessarily advocating SubTorment, although I think it's worth considering. However, that level of risk is manageable for a skilled player without making a Pokemon completely unviable (and note, for Heatran it's made possible because he has all kinds of other options in his arsenal, so that set carries the element of surprise). A slow, mostly frail, yet offensive Pokemon WITHOUT priority (maaaybe just Sucker Punch) is perfectly possible, it'd just be challenging to create (and require help setting up).
 

forestflamerunner

Ain't no rest for the wicked
I’m going to mention a couple of ideas of how we can create a Pokémon with risks involved while playing them in game. I don’t think these ideas have really seen the light of day, so I figured I’d mention them before the thread closes.

A Pokémon with illusion+ some other ability could create an interesting risk/reward scenario. Assume that our CAP has the abilities Adaptability and Illusion (throwback to my CS, but whatever). Whenever the opponent notices that I have CAP 4 on my team, he will almost certainly mentally prepare for the threat posed by both variants of the CAP, as each one requires different adjustments to handle. Now, suppose I am using the Illusion variant of CAP4. Every time I switch CAP 4 in, I face the risk of illusion breaking. If my opponent figures out that I am using the illusion variant, he would no longer have to protect certain members of his team to deal with an adaptability variant, which would cost you a significant strategic advantage. However, this would be counterbalanced by the potential of being able to catch the opponent off guard and stealing an easy KO if your illusion works properly. Conversely If I was using the Adaptability variant, I would still want to keep my opponent guessing as to which CAP 4 ability I am using, as that may cause the opponent to overpredict/mispredict because they are expecting illusion. Therefore, you would some sort of extra incentive not to send CAP 4 into battle so you can keep the charade going, even though the mon has noteable destructive potential. In summation, with this sort of ability combination, you would stand to risk losing a significant competitive advantage by switching CAP 4 into the match, but at the same time, you would need to switch CAP 4 into the match at some point for it to be effective. I think it would be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out.

We could also create an interesting risk/reward matrix by making a Pokémon with strong wallbreaking capabilities but would be setup bait for a large number of Pokémon. For example, a Pokémon with grass/fire typing would be probably be clear setup bait for Pokémon like Dragonite and latias, neither of whom you would really want to give extra setup opportunities, and CAP 4’s inability to touch these threats would be a significant downside to using the mon. But if CAP 4 is very effective against the rest of the metagame, it would probably be worth using despite its tragic flaw. However, there would still be a significant in match risk involved in playing CAP 4 if the opponent has such a Pokémon that can set up all over the CAP.

Finally, I understand that we do not want to focus on “match-up risk” by creating a gastrodon clone, but I do feel that we shouldn’t exclude Pokémon that have a magnezone like vibe from our spectrum of options. In other words, I think we should investigate a sort of pookemon/sets that can eliminate certain types of threats on the opponents team, but once these threats are gone or if they were never there in the first place, the Pokémon would be somewhat useless.
 
The comment on priority is fair. The main reason I talked about priority so much was that it was a relatively easy to describe variant of the "common weaknesses" theme that seems to be more favourable. The idea behind it was that we could have more control over CAP 4's Speed than typing and hazard weaknesses could, and that we wouldn't have to make CAP 4 really frail (at least physically) to make it fear priority. Yet, I suppose it takes a lot of bulk or a resistance to really shrug off a strong priority attack like Breloom's Mach Punch. Hopefully, we will be able to find good Speed tiers in which to place CAP 4 regardless of priority weaknesses. I wasn't saying we had to make CAP 4 weak to priority, just that it's one road I could see it taking.

To throw one last idea out there, I like the idea of a Pokémon that has more staying power with better play. I would prefer not to make a Pokémon whose sole purpose is to snatch a once-in-a-match sweeping opportunity, because then, the player's just hiding it throughout the match and I'm not sure that would be much fun (though yeah, there's a psychological factor there). That said, it might be cool to have a Pokémon that could poke in and threaten a sweep, but also have something else to do if the opponent moves to deny the sweep.
 

Base Speed

What a load of BS!
How exactly does one go about creating staying power through player skill? It's an intriguing concept that no doubt adds to risk, but I'm curious as to how we'd get it to work. Can one engineer type and stats to allow this (beyond having a wide gap in physical and special defense, as already discussed)? I fear the having lots of resistances and crippling weaknesses (a build that's already been much discussed) might have the pokemon hiding throughout the match, rather than fitting in with this model. Or is it the other way round?
Is it down to defensive boosting moves like cosmic power, or possibly crippling the opponent with moves like will-o-wisp in order to increase staying power?
And, while I hate to use buzz-words, would entry hazards fit into all this? Keeping the field clear of them requires skill, after all...
 
After analyzing the material and explanations from our community I have come to the following conclusions and possibilities for our new CAP.

When asked about risk, I drew up a chart of risk vs. reward taking several OU pokemon for examples. Some examples include:
Hydreigon - its typing subjects it to common, offensive moves: Ice Beam, Close Combat, Outage/Draco Meteor (faster dragons), etc., the reward being its massive coverage and overall power if it gets to sweep.
Volcarona - Its 4x weakness to Stealth Rock, however once it sets up it sweeps like a broom..
Chlorophyll Abusers - Without sun (if facing a rain team and Ninetales gets KO'd) they fall apart, but when sun's up - pretty damn strong.
Tyrannitar - Weak to common offensive typing, however against anything else it hits like a truck.
Archeops - Its ability holds it back from its true potential, but if it's allowed to attack without getting hurt first, it's pretty devastating.
Cloyster - Its Special Defense, Speed, and typing impact it severely; however, once it gets that Shell Smash up, it's pretty hard to take out.

So given the above comparisons of each pokemon's risk and its reward by playing it, I myself have come to the conclusion that this pokemon should be built up in the following way:
It should be a Bulky Set-Up Sweeper that is weak to common offensive moves. It should be able to, by itself, counter (not check) common walls, but them come up short with heavy sweepers. Another viable set is of course to have it a, as said, Bulky Set-up Sweeper; keeping of course a big vulnerability if it is interrupted.
Why Bulky you may ask, it's b/c with bulk comes a slower speed (generally), as said by the others in this discussion - we DO NOT NEED another glass cannon. What is needed, however, is a CAP that takes risks by having its inherit typing risk its own setup, but the reward for doing such setup allows it to blast away ANY threat that tries to come forward. Now wait - ANY threat? Yes, ANY, even to the mons that posed a giant threat to it before it was able setup. Now, if that's going a little to far, maybe the added difficulty to do so can come in the form of having defeatist as an ability. Then again what happens to its other set I advised? The wall-counter? It just might be possible to have it able to still boost its stats and be powerful, plus counter walls effectively (by the way if counter is too out-of-reach, checking will suffice) by giving it Guts. The reasoning being - most walls tend to use status ailments, so that then makes your opponent think twice before using such a move - if its the wall-breaking set, using Thunder Wave may not be a good idea, but if it is the Set-up Sweeper you should. Now the element of surprise is in your favor - if you have the sweeper and he switches, and you know he will, start the setup, if you have the wall-breaker and he switches, you can still inflict some condition upon the incoming mon. In either scenario, the risk is great, but as too is the rich reward.

So now, given all this information I have presented, this should be the ideal approach to this concept for this CAP. Thank You.
 

bugmaniacbob

Was fun while it lasted
is an Artist Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Right, time's up.

We've had a good run, and I think some quite good discussion too. The conclusions that I will be taking to the next stage are those that can be found in my last two posts - even though some of you may say they are quite vague (and others, not vague enough), I believe they give us enough direction to know how to deal with the next few topics. Sorry if you were expecting a large essay on the subject of how we're going to move on next, but I guess it can't be helped.

Onwards and upwards!
 
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