CAP 15 CAP 4 - Part 4 - Tertiary Ability Discussion

[Meganium Sulfate]

I agree that we have covered the bases in terms of abilities. We have 2 useful and complementary abilities already; any more, and this CAP will become too versatile, and the metagame won't be able to handle it. I, too, vouch for No Tertiary Ability.

tangential note

A unique ability
I'm definitely not counting on this to win, but obviously it's still an option. My idea was to create "risky bulk" by introducing an ability doubles both its resistances and weaknesses, much like something out of the Pokemon TCG called "Allergy Panic". This could make bulky sets all the more feasible, as it would allow risk-taking strategies to have a place in sets outside of just trying to attack.

This suggestion is actually the exact same effect as having 2 of the same type would be (Steel/Steel, Psychic/Psychic, etc.), something I advocated for way back in the typing phase. Next time, I would appreciate it if my potentially useful posts would not be deleted on the basis of a personal interpretation of forum rules.

However, if there must be another ability, I think it should be Moxie. It seems to me like the most different from what we have now, as well as equally compatible, risky and likely to be used. Moxie is definitely a close second choice for me as a tertiary ability.

 

[Delta Nite]

If we go the No Competitive Ability path, we may choose an Ability so neutral that it gives the option of running CAP4 in a non risky way, something that unpleases me and goes completely against our concept.

I'd go with either No Tertiary Ability or Flare Boost.

 

[Gemini Taurus]

I am going to once again try and get support for Trace (which BMB failed to comment on last time xD). As stated before the risk of having a potentially useful, useless, or hindering ability is definitely worth considering, also I believe it's on par in terms of usefulness with Illusion and Weak Armor

 

[Svartwolf]

between no Tertiary Ability and no competitive ability,i'm totally against no competitive ability. Giving this cap a third "neutral" option wouldn't benefit the concept in the slightest since a neutral ability would reduce both the risk and the reward, so while it would be balanced, it would still be very counterproductive.

for other options actually flare boost have been the only one that have caught my eye. does it boost negates burn atk cut? if it does, i wonder how it would work if the best setup move this mon had was coil? a one turn suicidal mixed setup poke that could use stuff like blizzard or megahorn due the accuracy gain, and also coil could work in a curious way with weak armor. sorry for the polljumping though , but a coil flarebooster poke sounded interesting and a little risky :P

my options then would be NTA and Flare Boost.

 

[TerrickTerran]

I like either Flare Boost if we want something risky or otherwise No Teritary Ability

 

[inanimate blob]

Honey Gather. Maybe Psybug will have good enough stats to not have to use with risks taken. Honey Gather would be a safe alternative.

 

[nyttyn]

Going to keep up my support for Mummy, although at this point the only ability that will enjoy serious use will be Illusion. Also still gunning for No Guard.

 

[Nyktos]

If we go the No Competitive Ability path, we may choose an Ability so neutral that it gives the option of running CAP4 in a non risky way, something that unpleases me and goes completely against our concept.

Can you think of a (reasonable) situation in which Illusion is actually worse than a neutral ability?

I'm willing to believe one exists, but as far as I can tell one doesn't, and if one doesn't than there's absolutely no reason to think that a "neutral" ability would ever be used.

 

[GeminiDragon64]

I'll agree with kit and GRs Cousin and say that the third ability should be explored for a defensive and risky game. No Guard and Marvel Scale reinforce this idea because NG promotes higher defensive stats to hopefully reduce Stone Edge and Fire Blast damage, while Marvel Scale increases defense as opposed to Weak Armour which decreases defense. I have the feeling that CAP4 will have high regular Attack and Defense stats based on its abilities.

 

[adhdtv]

Note: This post may polljump

My opinions on Marvel Scale and Flare boost: Marvel scale and flare boost really cut CAP4's mixed capabilities as a risk. However, I think that Flare boost is way too risky. Not only will CAP4 take entry hazard damage, but possibly an attacking move as well, not to mention residual burn damage and lack of leftovers. Giving CAP4 any means of recovery would remove any risk involved and would essentially turn it into Specially Offensive Conkeldurr. Marvel Scale without recovery on the other hand would turn it into a complete waste, while giving it recovery (including rest) would make it an absolute monster of a tank, destroying whatever risk it had.

I thought No Guard would work with Weak Armor, but I'm not seeing the compatibility with weak Armour/Illusion combo.

But here's a wild idea. Steadfast. Like Weak Armour, you get the speed boost without the defense drop, but its MUCH more situational, requiring you to get flinched in order to get the speed boost. However, it allows for early game risk, as with Illusion.

For example, say you lead with CAP4. predicting a Fake out lead set (to scout for illusion, most likely). If the opponent gets the flinch with weak armour on, they can revenge kill or switch to a check or counter. If the opponent decides to go for an attacking move, you get a speed boost and a chance to set up something else like a nasty plot or swords dance or even a sub.

With steadfast, you get a speed boost in exchange for not attacking a single turn. Steadfast CAP can also set up on scarf Jirachi with iron head. Steadfast can possibly induce switches, allowing for set-up. Weak Armour may be more controllable, but defense drops may not be desired.

I think this has wonderful synergy with both Weak Armour and Illusion. If the opponent sees CAP4, he may decide to either lead with a Fake Out lead or scarfed VoltTurner to scout for illusion, or a special attacker in general to deal with weak armour. In the case of the first two, its a perfect chance to set up some sort of boost like maybe quiver dance. Steadfast also makes for a decent defensive option, because if CAP4 has bulk and the opponent gives it speed, it becomes sort of a threat.

Either this or Quick tempered from the previous discussion, but that's highly unlikely, so I'm not even going to try. STEADFAST for the win

 

[viashinomage]

I am going to once again try and get support for Trace (which BMB failed to comment on last time xD). As stated before the risk of having a potentially useful, useless, or hindering ability is definitely worth considering, also I believe it's on par in terms of usefulness with Illusion and Weak Armor

And once again I'm going to stand behind you on that.

On a side note, I'm also nominating Truant. I mean come on, what's more risky than entrainment durant (besides smashing when your sash is broken)? a similar set with different typing and stats can mean a world of difference for any poke. and even if we decide to not give CAP 4 entrainment, this ability will fill the non competitive ability everybody loves.

 

[CiteAndPrune]

Right, now that we have Weak Armor and Illusion as abilities (sigh...) let's get down to work.


I'm seeing a lot of people advocating risky abilities again, as well as those proposing NTA entirely because 'we can't go any riskier after that stage 2'. I personally feel they're missing the point. Please hear me out.

In the concept capefeather put forth, there was mention of 'risk management' as well. We're at the third ability stage. We have selected two risky abilities, both of which will primarily suit CAP4's offensive sets (although I can see the merit of +1 speed and a turn of distraction on supporter sets). Therefore now is the time to find some neutral ability that CAP4's support sets will select because they aren't planning to sweep. It doesn't necessarily have to be all risky - we just need to pick something that doesn't outclass the other two (with Weak Armor that can be... hmmm).

With that in mind, I throw in my support behind the following abilities:

Shield Dust as in the previous discussion, and I said I'd like it better as a Terciary ability. It runs with the theme of 'stopping hax'. Whether or not it'd outshine Weak Armor/Illusion will depend on stats though, I guess.

To all those advocating Flare Boost, which I'd also support.... I believe that Heatproof is the non-offensive alternative that is worth considering (and I'd totally choose over Marvel Scale as it's not as dependent on stats). It reduces burn damage and reduces CAP4's Fire weakness to a neutrality - it still allows for all the PsychoShift strategies if we decide to give CAP4 that move, but it trades the boosted power for prolonged survivability. Something to consider indeed.

Otherwise, I believe Overcoat is also an option to address another source of residual damage (and interestingly, the x4 Fighting resist CAP4 has will be handy on sandstorm/hail themes that have Rock, Steel and Ice types in the mix).

I still think Moxie deserves another chance on the slate. I'm still opposed to No Guard. And if we go with NCA ultimately, then Honey Gather sounds like a cute idea.

 

[Ragnarokalex]

Really I think we have more than enough with these 2 abilities here, especially with Weak Armor we are probably going to need a relatively dedicated stat spread, we should just finish off the ability pool here with a non competitive ability.

 

[acausetolead]

Flare Boost or Marvel Scale

The problem with No Tertiary/Competitive Ability is that Illusion has no real downsides, and can even be a Non-Competitive ability as long as you put CAP4 in the last spot. If you didn't want Weak Armour as your ability, you always have a viable option to fall back on. There's no need for another ability that does nothing when you can choose for your ability to do nothing.

 

[capefeather]

Okay, well, we have this duality between two abilities focusing largely on single turns. There has been comparatively little focus on tactics lasting several turns. People talk about accuracy as if you hit or you don't, but this has a bigger impact than people seem to realize when you're adding up the miss chances over many turns. Imperfect accuracy is at the forefront of the current suspect test, where Garchomp can use it to great effect to Substitute stall and buy turns to set up. Gliscor is no stranger to exploiting imperfect accuracy, either, using Substitute supplemented by Poison Heal to stall moves like Hydro Pump and Fire Blast and succeed in getting a Substitute up because it's decently fast. It should be noted that CAP 4 can both abuse and fall victim to these strategies. I feel that this is relevant to the question I asked about Substitute because the metagame has shown how the effectiveness of "safe" moves like Substitute and Protect is altered by the imperfect accuracies of common moves.

Take this as you will because it's just a thought that came up for me. There has been so much emphasis on single turns that perhaps we have forgotten to take the long term into account.

P.S. Guys, if NCA is chosen, the decision on what it will be will be put off until after the art polls.

 

[JamesSonofBaboonzo]

I have no idea why so many people are saying NCA or NTA. As is, I probably wouldn't even consider CAP 4 for a team if it didn't at least get something other then what it's got right now. I would at least like the option to be able to take advantage of whatever physical bulk it has, even if that means having to use Honey Gather. But why should we not pick something with some additional competitive merit? These 2 abilities that we have picked are both good ways to explore risk, but they only just touch the tip of the iceberg of what can be considered "risky". We shouldn't "quit while we're ahead" when we can do so much more at this stage. Please someone tell me why NTA or NCA is the best way to go here.

For now, I am putting my Support behind Moxie, No Guard, and Flare Boost. I haven't been big on Flare Boost before now, as it leans a bit closer to "glass cannonry" than I would like, but that can easily be fixed in the stats/move stage. I would take Flare Boost in a heartbeat over NTA.

 

[Asylum_Rhapsody]

At this point, I think that the only ability that could possible work well alongside both Weak Armor and Illusion would be No Guard, for all of the reasons already mentioned in previous threads. It has already been discussed how No Guard has great duality with Weak Armor, so I don't need to repeat any of that, and it's also been discussed why Illusion has great duality with Weak Armor. So, what's the missing piece? No Guards duality with Illusion! That's right, these three abilities form a... duality triangle? triality? I'm not sure what that's called... Anyway, the duality between No Guard and Illusion is the duality of prediction between deception and clarity. It's also already been discussed in previous threads the grand benefits that No Guard provides to the concept based on eliminating luck as a factor. While those have not been the main focus before, they do come to the forefront, I think, when discussing No Guard's duality with Illusion. The two abilities play with prediction-based risk in entirely opposite ways.

Other than No Guard, though, there are no abilities that I currently think provide this "triality" with Weak Armor and Illusion. I may be persuaded otherwise, but for now, my alternate vote will go for No Competitive Ability. I am not supporting No Tertiary Ability because I think that such a measure is entirely unnecessary. I firmly believe that an additional flavor ability would not harm this Pokemon in terms of this concept. I may have felt differently if No Guard had won the last post, but as it currently stands, if players would like to play with an ability that offers no downside, then they already have Illusion to play with. I am always in favor of additional opportunities for flavor when it will not harm the competitive aspect of CAP, so I would prefer that a tertiary ability, a flavor ability, be allowed.

At this point, I see this third poll as being pretty short. I really don't see any reason why anything but the two options that I highlighted above should even be slated. If it wasn't good enough for you to think of it and for it to get slated some time during the last two discussions, it's not going to be good enough now. I don't even think that Moxie should be included anymore, as I fail to see it form a risk "triality" as No Guard does.

EDIT: For people advocating for NCA, please stop suggesting what you think that NCA should be. The NCA is also known as the "flavor ability", and you have absolutely zero idea what it should be, because it will be based on the flavor of the design concept, and we do not have a selected design concept yet. Assuming that one will be the winner for your NCA suggestion is poll-jumping of the most disrespectful kind.

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

I still support No Guard, and I have changed my opinion about Moxie. I feel that giving CAP4 a NCA or NTA would be a waste, if we decide to do so, then I support No Competitive Ability, because gimmick flavour abilities are fun to utilise in fan art :B.

 

[JamesSonofBaboonzo]

I apologize for posting twice in a short time, but this felt like it needed to be posted on its own rather than slapped onto my last post.

Reading through the NTA and NCA posts, most of the ones that gave a reasoning for it said that a third competitive ability would mess with the duality between Illusion and Weak Armor. I understand their point from a artistic point of view, "We have good duality between our current abilities, why try mucking around with it? We could just end up ruining that contrast by adding in a third competitive ability." While I would usually agree with that sort of thinking, in my mind we should be viewing this more as a science experiment than an art project. We started this CAP, just like every one sense the beginning, to try to learn something about the metagame. We therefore should be testing as many variables as possible, not just the ones that make a nice contrast. I see no reason from a scientific point of view to not "go crazy" As I see it now, we earned a B on the abilities. We don't need to go any farther to have a successful CAP, but going farther could get us an A, so why shouldn't we? The only thing we have to lose is the pretty contrast that Weak Armor and Illusion make, and while that would be a loss, it isn't important to our end goal. We spend so much time and effort on these CAPs to reach our goal that we should do as much as possible to make sure we do so, artistic sanity be damned if it stands in our way.

 

[Devidra]

I like personally like the idea of Shield Dust or Overcoat. As mentioned before it provides an alternate way to play the pokemin without outclassing the other abilities. Flare Boost seems a bit iffy since the pokemon is most likely gonna be taking a ton of residual/battle damage, but the same can be said about Weak Armor so ill support it.

 

[Ewil]

To round up the trio, since the first ability let you outspeed (maybe) all the meta and the second ability let you (maybe) surprise all the meta, why not have two options in:

(maybe) sweep all the meta: Flare/Toxic Boost/Guts
a clear ability that lets your opponent be warned by the danger that our pkmn could be by activing its status orb. So the risk is that your opponent know your ability and the status reduce your health while the reward is an unstoppable (depending on the stats) sweep if your opponent doesn't have dedicated check(s).

the guarantee sweep and powerfull and accurate moves: No Guard
The risks is that your opponent have the warranty to check your pkmn with a never miss move, the reward is that you can abuse powerfull moves without fear to miss and the pkmn can abuses something new other then the common Dynamic Punch. It's an unexplored ability from the special and support side and i really appreciate to deepen.

 

[meteor64]

I'm going to bring up Defiant again for points I raised in the previous thread.

The other one that kinda intrigues me is Steadfast. Flinch moves tend to have a good chance of activating the secondary effect, so a good prediction could easily tip what would have been a bad bit of hax into a rewarding sweep (and in the case of Fake Out, it wouldn't even be hax). The problem I see is that you can't switch in and get flinched- which makes it really hard to abuse without revealing your ability beforehand. Plus, most flinch moves are physical anyway, the only exception I can think of being Air Slash (which you really don't want to be staying in on). How could you justify Steadfast over Weak Armor? One is a guaranteed activation upon being hit by a physical attack in any scenario, one is a potential activation from a few specific moves (most of which are physical anyway) and you cannot activate through switching. Both achieve the same goal, but one is, in the vast majority of scenarios, simply better.

What I like about Steadfast is the idea behind it- it aims for the same goal as Weak Armor, but through different risky methods- and it is for this reason that I will also support Motor Drive. Motor Drive in no way outclassesWeak Armor, since while Motor Drive does not drop your defense upon activation and for the most part gives you immunity to paralysis, it is far harder to activate, and probably just as risky, given that its far easier to make a bad switch when theres only one correct move to come in on- with Weak Armor its much easier to switch into things like Gliscor, Conkeldurr and Breloom, who for the most part our CAP can take any hit and threaten with little to fear, than it is for us to use Motor Drive to switch in on Ferrothorn, Celebi, Rotom-W, Forretress, or Magnezone, who can easily wreck our CAP with the correct move on the switch in (Ferrothorn and Forry especially since it could potentially boost our CAPs speed deliberately with TWave/Volt Switch and then KO with Gyro Ball).

 

[scorpdestroyer]

A unique ability
I'm definitely not counting on this to win, but obviously it's still an option. My idea was to create "risky bulk" by introducing an ability doubles both its resistances and weaknesses, much like something out of the Pokemon TCG called "Allergy Panic". This could make bulky sets all the more feasible, as it would allow risk-taking strategies to have a place in sets outside of just trying to attack.

Choice Scarf Tyranitar is about to attack your Heatran, so you are presented with risk in trying to send out CAP4 with Allergy Panic. If it uses Close Combat or Earthquake, you are essentially given a free turn as its move does only an eighth of the damage it would have normally done, forcing a switch. However, your opponent might predict a switch and use Stone Edge or Crunch, doing quadruple damage to you and KOing CAP4 for that battle. As far as I'm concerned, no other ability fulfills the concept as well as that, and would be an amazing addition to the concept of high risk, high reward.

I'm not looking for another glass cannon with this CAP. I want to see all aspects of risk explored, which we would gain with a defensive ability like Marvel Scale or Allergy Panic. Neither ability overshadows Weak Armor or Illusion because of how they are so situationally different from eachother. Could we not at least play around with the idea of risk with bulk?

Well. I think this is a pretty good idea. So it's pretty much very risky; failure to predict the enemy's moves could result in death but if done right, it could force switches or buy time to set up or launch attacks.

Otherwise, I'm going for either Steadfast, Tangled Feet or a safer ability such as Honey Gather. Steadfast would be good IMO because flinching is required. Tangled Feet would be good too but obviously only if CAP4 doesn't have wings. And Honey Gather is for a safer option.

 

[pekka1995]

I'm just gonna have to ask someone what abilities that are considered "Non Competitive abilities cause I know that abilities like honey gather and illumiinate belongs to those but does abilities like Steadfast which overall isn't too useful and mummy which has its uses but isn't that "good"

 

[GuyInCorner]

I would like to explore GR'sCousins's idea further. What makes me wary of your idea, however, is the simple fact that coverage moves exist and are everywhere. This ability seems like it let's you take a hit for little damage and force a switch, but switching on anything that isn't choiced or that you know for sure has no coverage moves means you could lose CAP4 is basically a turn. What I am saying is, I'm not sure that the risk is proportional to the reward. You may get a turn to set up, but what then?