CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 10 - Attacking Moves Discussion

[Basileus]

Ok, I want to bring priority moves into the light because those are super important. Mainly I think that shadow sneak and Sucker Punch should be allowed. (sorry if I am beating a dead horse with sucer puncch since "all dark type moves" are already allowed but you also said "nothing was written in stone"). Anyway,this is because of main threats like Gengar and latios/latias. Shadow sneak allows for CAP5 to 2HKO Gengar because of it's priority. Normally Gengar would be able to 2HKO CAP5 with focus blast and maybe even HP fire but shadow sneak fixes this problem completely. As for sucker punch, which is much more OP in retrospect, can OHKO such threats as CM latios/latias and bulky Jellicent but requires very precise prediction because it won't hit unless an attack is coming, making it much less OP in my opinion.

I also think that Fire type moves and ground type moves with over 60BP should be disallowed because take into consideration a Scizor using sword dance in front of a grass/dark Pokemon thinking it will have no trouble OHKOing it at all when BAM a fire fang to the face wrecks it. Way too OP, Scizor is supposed to be on the "threatened by" list.

On another note, I would like make an argument that we should discuss Icicle spear as a competitive attacking move and as a good ice move despite not being 60 BP or more. This is because of it's ability to break substitute making it more important then normal. Also, I think being a multiple-hit move does TECHNICALLY give it a total BP of 125 (max). I won't discuss it any further than that though.

 

[yoshinite]

Grass-Type Moves:
Power Whip and Lead Blade are both good options for CAP 5. However, I feel that Wood Hammer is too broken because of the reasons stated previously. Horn Leech would encourage Snakey to become a bulky attacker.
Bug-Type Moves:
I honestly don't see Snapple making much use of X-Scissor, so I don't care if that's allowed or not. However, U-Turn allows it to switch out of bad confrontations with grass and bug-types, and let its allied fire-types take care of them.
Dragon-Type and Ice-Type Moves
I'd say no to Ice-Type moves, with the possible exception of Ice-Fang, because it is not too powerful but can take care of Dragons if necessary. Dragon Tail, on the other hand provides a versatile move to get CAP 5 out of bad situations an possibly rack up a little SR damage.
Steel-Type Moves
I'd really only consider steel moves nessecary if CAP 5 doesn't have any Rock or
Fighting-Type moves to take care of Ice-Types. Other than that, see X-Scissor
Flying and Psychic-Type Moves
Psychic Moves would allow CAP 5 to easily take out Poison-Types, an underused Type. You may argue that it needs to be able to take on Fighting-Type pokemon, but for that you could allow Flying-Type moves such as Aerial Ace

 

[Allethosea]

In regards to Ice-Type moves I'm in favor of allowing Ice Fang but not allowing other Ice moves. Anything more powerful than Ice Fang would become too strong at taking out threats that we're not meant to be checking (specifically). I can see the arguments for Ice Shard and am not totally opposed to it.

In its current form the Snake has very little it can do if, say, a Dragonite or Landorus switches in. I feel like it becomes too much of a liability to run when threats like these can simply switch in, setup and sweep. In this regard I think that either Ice Fang or U-turn should suffice, but not both. With either of these moves we're still threatened by things that are meant to threaten us but aren't so weak that the whole meta walks on us.

 

[Hyperactivity]

Bug-Type Moves- I personally don't see the use of these, as almost everything Malaconda hits with these moves are hit with its Dark STAB, however U-Turn would'nt expand Malaconda's coverage while still letting it gain a momentum grabbing move. This would help Sun teams a bunch as with all offensive teams, sun teams love capitalizing on momentum. And for those worrying that this would make it too easy to trap Heatran with Dugtrio, I have to say, Dugtrio is doing its job, and in any other case all the other rapid spinners/magic bouncers (that we're trying to replace with Malaconda) do a good job with Heatran too (Earthquake, Volt-Swich, U-Turn, Baton Pass (of which 3 of these are switching moves juat like U-Turn). And it's not like U-Turn hits a counter hard. It has redundant coverage with our Dark STAB. So. in short, Disallow all bug type moves other than U-Turn.

 

[Nyktos]

First off, I would like to say I am more or less completely in agreement with what jas said in his post. That said, here's my take on those moves in the "Needs Discussion" section that I haven't already covered.

Leaf Blade
While I think avoiding giving Malaconda moves that are unnecessary is an admirable goal, let's look at the spirit and not just the letter of that law. If Malaconda gets Power Whip / Wood Hammer, Leaf Blade is an outclassed option that is only useful for accuracy freaks who use Flamethrower on their offensive Heatran. I don't see any reason to deny them the option. If Malaconda doesn't get those 120 BP moves, Leaf Blade would be its best Grass STAB, and in that case I think it would need it. While I would much prefer allowing Power Whip, if we don't get that we should get something that doesn't require an boosting nature to 2HKO one of our most important targets in defensive Politoed. Regardless of what other Grass STABs are allowed, we should allow Leaf Blade.

Bug coverage
This is a tricky one for me. There are a few layers to look at here. First off, there is Malaconda's own double-weakness to Bug. Giving it a Bug move -- even a weak one such as Bug Bite -- means that it isn't a safe switchin on itself. I actually think this may be a net positive: consider the outcome of two defensive LumRest Malaconda facing off when Malaconda is the best Malaconda switchin for both teams. Not a lot of fun.

The second layer is the "Megahorn is an insanely good move" layer. Seriously, this is AC material at the absolute worst on pretty much any Pokémon that gets it. It doesn't matter that the coverage isn't ideal: if Megahorn is in Malaconda's movepool, it will be used. I strongly feel that a coverage move this strong is a very bad idea when we want Malaconda to be relying on its STABs primarily. Also it's not horny enough. Disallow Megahorn.

The third layer, and the most important one, is U-turn. I am still somewhat undecided on this move, but currently I'm leaning toward being in favour of it (see Pwnemon's and jas's posts for the arguments in favour). At the very least, I think the move deserves a discussion in context, and cape has made it clear that that will happen only if we decide that Bug coverage in the general case is reasonable. I think, barring Megahorn, it is. I think Malaconda being able to threaten itself is not a bad thing, and it doesn't hit a hell of a lot else very hard: two of the three OU Grasses are neutral to it, the Psychic types will take more from Dark STAB, and Tyranitar will take more from Grass STAB. Hydreigon and Celebi are the only things that Bug actually "covers", and while neither of them are on our list of things to threaten, they aren't supposed to counter us either. I don't think they're the sort of Pokémon we should be aiming to threaten, but we don't need to feel bad about doing so if there are other solid reasons to allow Bug coverage (which I think there are). Allow other Bug attacks.

Dragon coverage
Aside from Dragon Tail, I see no reason to allow this at all. The dragons we want to hit are weak to Dark. This is a place where "don't give it moves it doesn't need" really comes into play. Dragon coverage will not break Malaconda in any way, but they also offer nothing to the concept or the goals we've carved out. Dragon Tail at least does something interesting (and is too weak to really count as coverage), but being blocked by Sub means that it is likely to be an inferior phazing option to Roar or Whirlwind should it get those. On the other hand any arguments against Roar/Whirlwind will likely apply to it as well, so regardless of whether Malaconda gets other phazing options Dragon Tail probably isn't going to end up mattering; it will either be allowed and outclassed or it will be disallowed. With that in mind, disallow Dragon attacks.

Ice coverage
To a large degree this feels much the same as Dragon coverage. That being said, Ice Fang is weak enough that it can be a niche option that makes Lando and some of the dragons think twice about setting up, and thus is probably okay. I definitely think we should disallow Ice attacks stronger than Ice Fang, but I haven't come to a decision yet on how I feel about Ice Fang itself.

Steel coverage
Completely useless, and we don't care about Kyurem anyway. I don't know why this has gained traction, but I think it's stupid. Giving Malaconda Steel coverage is the very definition of "because we can", and that's something to avoid. Disallow Steel attacks.

 

[capefeather]

I'll wait a while longer to start moving stuff to Allowed/Disallowed because it hasn't been a day yet, but here are things as they seem to stand right now.

There seems to be no significant objection to powerful Grass-type moves other than maybe Wood Hammer. Nyktos has pointed out that Power Whip is needed to 2HKO defensive Politoed at all without significant investment.

I have to admit I didn't really expect much different concerning Flying- and Psychic-type moves. Obviously, if anyone still wants to argue that Toxicroak and Breloom should be covered, they can do so, but I personally doubt that that will happen.

Ice-type moves seem to be largely favoured, but there's concern over their base power. I'm personally not sure if it matters right now, since the main goal would be to deal with Dragon-types and doubly weak Ground-types, which would mostly fall even to Ice Shard.

There have been a lot of arguments against Fighting-type coverage, so I've put that category into the Needs Discussion list. If the general trend continues, they will be disallowed.

Finally, while I originally planned to talk about switching moves more in the non-attacking move discussion, it's become clear that they (particularly U-turn) are actually important for determining whether certain other coverage moves should be allowed. U-turn would maintain momentum against threats like Scizor, which could otherwise make Malaconda a severe liability, especially on a sun team. So U-turn has been singled out from other Bug-type moves, which seem to be deemed to have little importance, anyway.

As an aside, I'm not sure I'm a fan of the idea of disallowing moves due to low importance, because I have specifically picked out moves and move categories that have some level of importance. I would prefer to lower movepool limits to address low-importance moves. That said, I put Dragon- and Ice-type moves together because I don't see one being important if the other is on the movepool.

 

[JEFLIV]

I think that all the Fang moves should be allowed but no other moves of the types. For paralysis and a guaranteed first attack after an opening Payback, Body Slam should be allowed. I personally believe that Malaconda should know Dragon Tail and possibly Dual Chop as well as Ice Fang to counter Dragon-types like Salamence. I am in favor of Steel attacks as they do good physical damage and some, like Iron Head, flinch the opponent. Poison Tail, Brick Break and U-turn should all be allowed as Malaconda needs at least a slim hope against types it does not counter. I agree with everyone about Flying, Psychic and all other attacks, but I suggest Brick Break as an option against defensive screens. I stress that these are just suggestions and no one needs to listen to me.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I agree with jas61292 that Power Whip, Wood Hammer, and the rest of CAP5's STAB options should not be foregone conclusions, but it is imperative that all STAB moves are allowed for this Pokemon. CAP5 needs to be able to dish out damage against Water-type Pokemon, and having to choose between adequate power and superior defenses is very anti-concept. CAP5 should not be forced to run Attack EVs or an Adamant nature to significantly threaten Pokemon such as defensive Politoed, Jellicent, or defensive Rotom-W, but without Power Whip, CAP5 faces that dilemma. Looking at Leaf Blade, the second-most powerful STAB move on CAP5, we can see how weak the move really is.

4Atk CAP5 (Neutral) Leaf Blade vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Politoed (+Def): 43% - 52% (168 - 200 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.

With Leftovers in play, Leaf Blade cannot 2HKO Defensive Politoed without Attack investment. That's simply unacceptable, as it means Politoed can switch into even a critical hit most of the time and successfully change the weather. Since CAP5 is intended to be a Sun-based Pokemon, forcing CAP5 to drop its defensive prowess to adequately damage Politoed, a not-so-bulky Water, is unacceptable. All Grass STAB for allowed.


U-Turn NEEDS, NEEDS, NEEDS to be allowed. It is by far the most important non-STAB attacking move that Malaconda can have in its movepool because it accomplishes just about everything outlined in the Threats discussion while ensuring that Malaconda will never be a sitting duck. First and foremost, let's remember that U-Turn is a pitifully weak attack. It's a 70 Base Power non-STAB move coming off a mediocre Base 100 Attack stat. The reason U-Turn is such a great move on CAP5 is because it allows CAP5 to maintain its team's momentum if Malaconda's user predicts a switch. U-Turn does not allow us to threaten anything deemed to be a threat in the Threats Discussion, and still lets those Pokemon threaten CAP5. All U-Turn does is reward good prediction by not turning Malaconda into a sitting duck for Dragons, Fires, and Fighters.

U-Turn for allowed.

Other Bug-type coverage seems superfluous. X-Scissor is not going to be used in any capacity because it doesn't hit anything important that Grass or Dark-type STAB does, while Megahorn lets CAP5 greatly threaten Breloom and promotes a more offensive set that can power through a premier threat to CAP5. Megahorn (and X-Scissor if it's that important) for Disallowed.

Dragon-type coverage should not be allowed on Malaconda. In the Threats Discussion, Dragons were set aside as Pokemon that should not overly threaten Malaconda but Malaconda should not overly threaten either. Dragon-type moves would be solely for the purpose of attacking Dragons not named Latias and Latios, and therefore would run contrary to the Threats Discussion. Furthermore, Dragon-type coverage on Malaconda would be pretty useless as Dragon Claw is too weak, Dragon Rush is too inaccurate, and non-STAB Outrage on Base 100 Attack is lol. Dragon-type coverage for Disallowed

Meteor Mash should be disallowed for the same reason Dragon-type coverage should be. Steel-type coverage is only useful against Kyurem-Black, a Pokemon we did not want to specifically threaten if we could help it. If you want to allow Iron Tail or something for flavor purposes that's fine, but no Meteor Mash. If Malaconda wants to be able to gain momentum off of Kyurem-Black, it should use U-Turn and switch to an acceptable counter.Meteor Mash for disallowed, all other Steel-type moves can be allowed I guess.

Flying coverage is a really terrible idea. So is Psychic coverage. Disallow Flying and Psychic coverage.

Low Kick is a poor idea because it nukes Heatran, a Pokemon designed to defeat CAP5. We should not succumb to the "Well, if Malaconda really wants to use X to beat Y, then we should let it." ideology, which is the only defensible reason I can think of for Low Kick. We got Krilowatt's horrendous movepool from those ideas, and we're not building a utility counter anyway. We're building a focused Sun Pokemon that performs spectacularly against Rain teams.Low Kick for Disallowed, along with all other Fighting coverage.

Electric-type moves should be allowed. Gyarados is a Pokemon we should threaten as a Rain counter, and we should deal with Gyarados by having a legitimate means to KO it, not to let another Pokemon do Malaconda's dirty work with U-Turn. Wild Charge and other Physical Electric-type moves should be allowed on Malaconda. Electric coverage for allowed.

 

[Brambane]

I would like to bring up Night Shade and Super Fang.

Night Shade is an excellent move for CAP5. Malaconda really struggles to do any significant damage unless its fully invested in Attack or is using a super-effective Power Whip/Payback. Night Shade provides a reliable form of offense without the need to invest in Attack, which frees up EVs for its defenses. A set of Night Shade / Substitute / Support Move A / Support Move B allows Malaconda to provide utility to sun teams, especially sunstall, while not relying on single-type coverage. At the same time, Night Shade at most is going to be a 3HKO against the majority of the metagame, meaning CAP5 won't be able to power through the tier. It also provides an opening to one of the most threatening Pokemon to Malaconda: Staraptor.

Super Fang is in similar vein but with a more offensive approach. Super Fang hits everything but Ghosts, which are hit by STAB Crunch/Payback/Pursuit/whatever. Super Fang's damage, though, gets weaker over time and his imperfect accuracy, while Night Shade is more reliable. It also makes something like Heatran more hesitant to come in, as it doesn't want to lose 50% of its HP, which may be bad for the concept. Thus, I'm on the fence with it. I think Super Fang needs more discussion.

 

[BrianFantana]

About U-Turn... A lot of the current discussion of U-Turn could all essentially apply to Baton Pass - hence, the only thing this thread actually needs to ask of U-Turn is this: what could Malaconda do with an 70bp Physical Bug attack? And I think the answer is 'not much'. It would nail Celebi, who Malaconda can hit with Dark STAB anyway, and besides that it would just add some pretty weak neutral coverage. So until the non-attacking move discussion, where I feel the real debate around U-Turn/Baton Pass should happen, I'd have it tentatively allowed - as an attacking move, it doesn't threaten to detach Malaconda from its concept.

I think it's important that Ice type coverage be allowed as well. And I don't just mean Ice Fang - I would be in favour of Malaconda getting Avalanche and/or Icicle Crash too. Landorus, Gliscor, Garchomp, Mence and Dnite are all big deals for sun teams, and if Malaconda can check them confidently it will be all the better for it. Perhaps more to the point, it also gives Malaconda a solid weapon against Thundy-T, another big rain team threat that Sun struggles with - and one of the main offenders on the threat list. The only thing CAP5 can hit hard with Ice type coverage that it shouldn't is Breloom, but with Breloom walling both of its STABs and hitting it very, very hard with Mach Punch, it's safe to say that it can still be considered a threat.

I think Psychic and Flying type coverage has been addressed well enough elsewhere - in short, they give Malaconda 4x Super Effective hits on things that should be threatening it. I would add Rock, Ground and Water type attacks to the list of coverage options I feel Malaconda should not get under any circumstances. Water is the most obviously against our interests; it would find no use on any half-serious sun team but would be perfectly viable in the rain. It also covers things Malaconda really should not be threatening - namely Ninetales, Heatran and Volcarona. The latter reason is also the grounds on which I dismiss Rock and Ground options. So for my part I think Psychic, Flying, Rock, Ground and Water coverage moves should be disallowed.

Natural Gift is cute, and sure, it would be interesting just for the novelty value, but unfortunately Malaconda's go-to Lum and Sitrus berries are very inconveniently typed - they're Flying and Psychic respectively, and at 60bp would be serviceable coverage options against Breloom and Toxicroak. It's a small detail, but if in the early stages of a game Malaconda's berry is unrevealed, it becomes unsafe to switch in Toxicroak or Breloom against it. Not cool. Disallow.

 

[Homeslice]

I don't like the support towards Natural Gift. Yes it's essentially a physical Hidden Power for Malaconda, but the berries it's going to be commonly running are actually very useful types for it.
Lum- Base 60 Flying. Yes, only base 60, but also threatens Breloom horribly and we've already deemed flying unwanted. Also threatens Volcarona.
Sitrus- Base 60 Psychic. Same thing as above.
Chesto- Base 60 Water. Threatens frail fire types somewhat.

I'm sure some people will abuse pinch berries, so I'll throw some out there too
Salac- Base 80 Fighting. Stronger than Brick Break and threatens steels.
Ganlon (Defense one)- Base 80 Ice. Seemed like no support was wanted for Ice.
Apricot (Sp Def)- Base 80 Ground. Bye bye Heatran and some steels.

I know the pinch berries are somewhat pushing it, but could we get some calcs for these? I think it'd be able to do somewhat significant damage, especially to frail sweepers that can't OHKO. It also could be less powerful than I thought.

As far as U-turn goes, I'm simply not in support due to it's somewhat limited use. Malaconda has a low base 55 speed. What does he plan on outspeeding? The only real way I see this being useful is if we have a Substitute to hide behind, a Custap Berry, or predicting a switch. I'm on the fence about this one, but if I had to pick I would say no.

Ground moves are under pending, but the threats list says we want to threaten Electric types. Only real way to do this is to allow Ground moves, but there's no real effective physical ground moves other than Earthquake. I don't see it becoming a huge problem off an uninvested Base 100 attack though. A glaring problem I see with this is that steels and fire also become threatened.

 

[Swamp-Rocket]

First post ever in CAP so it may be dumb. However, I support Natural Gift

60 Base Power is actually pretty freaking weak without investment in stats, you'd be surprised. (Actually its weak even with a boosting item. We are talking along the lines of Bite and Icy Wind here). Like, compare Flame Wheel to a Life Orbed Flare Blitz or something along those lines, is what the power difference becomes.

To outline Homeslice's post about potentially powerful moves...

Lum- Base 60 Flying. Yes, only base 60, but also threatens Breloom horribly and we've already deemed flying unwanted. Also threatens Volcarona.

Going off of damage calculations, Breloom isn't going to get threatened by this thing even with the move. Here is damage from a Mach Punch against this thing. IDK what the spreads will be, but Breloom is extremely likely to OHKO 252/0 Malaconda.

252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom (+Atk) Mach Punch vs 252 HP/0 Def Malaconda: 98.16% - 115.44%

And then of course there is Low Sweep, which will always KO after Stealth Rock no matter the spread.

252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom (+Atk) Low Sweep vs 252 HP/252 Def Malaconda (+Def) : 96.08% - 112.67%

Also, Malaconda, without a Boosting item and EVs in Attack, actually cannot OHKO Breloom with a 60 base power Flying move!

0 Atk Malaconda Wing Attack vs 0 HP/0 Def Breloom: 79.69% - 95.02% (2 hits to KO)

I'm aware this destroys Breloom with Attack investments, entry hazards, etc, but this also means that Malaconda can't get past Breloom instantly, even if it catches it on the switch, assuming it is defensive which I assume most will be? But, the point is, it can't even OHKO a freaking Breloom with a x4 super effective attack, meaning the power isn't all too overwhelming. Plus, the need to predict the switch-in is rather important. Would Breloom need to be careful if it had Natural Gift? Yes, it would. Would it instantly be vaporized by the move? It often would not be.

Sitrus- Base 60 Psychic. Same thing as above.

0 Atk Malaconda Heart Stamp vs 0 HP/0 Def Toxicroak: 80.78% - 95.11% (2 hits to KO)

Similar situation to Breloom. Note that you can only deal with one of these threats, Toxicroak hates the Sun enough already and is unable to set up against them because of its weakness to Fire and it losing HP as it attempts to set up (it can lose 22.5% of its health if it attacks and has a Life Orb). Toxicroak is a lot weaker than Breloom and will therefore lose against this particular Malaconda most of the time, but the weather itself aids an immense amount in defeating Toxicorak already.

Chesto- Base 60 Water. Threatens frail fire types somewhat.

If Malaconda is supposed to be a Sun based Pokemon, there will rarely be an instance where A)There will be a Fire-type to worry about and B) It will actually do anything because it is being weakened by the Sun.

Salac- Base 80 Fighting. Stronger than Brick Break and threatens steels.

Steel types dgaf about an 80 Base Power Fighting move. Half of the Steel-types in the tier are neutral to Fighting, and the ones that are very bulky (Ferrothorn, Magnezone, and Heatran, and I guess Lucario is also a Steel-type)

Calcs using Submission (a virtually identical move)

0 Atk Malaconda Submission vs 0 HP/0 Def Heatran: 34.06% - 40.25% (3 hits to KO)
0 Atk Malaconda Submission vs 252 HP/88 Def Ferrothorn: 24.43% - 28.98% (4-5 hits to KO)
0 Atk Malaconda Submission vs 252 HP/0 Def Magnezone: 29.65% - 35.47% (3-4 hits to KO)

Also, I'm not sure why you would decide to use a Salac Berry in the first place :/

Ganlon (Defense one)- Base 80 Ice. Seemed like no support was wanted for Ice.
Apricot (Sp Def)- Base 80 Ground. Bye bye Heatran and some steels.

Why would someone run these berries? To activate them, you need to be at 25% health in the first place, meaning that something is going to revenge kill you or Malaconda is not in a good position. Ice and Ground are useful Berries, but then you pretty much have no item.

I think we are overexaggerating how useful Natural Gift can be for this thing. It isn't going to one-shot stuff that is weak to it - 60 or 80 base power and 100 Base attack won't allow it, especially if you happen to not be investing in the said stat. You need to be 4x Super Effective and have Stealth Rock to obtain a small chance at doing so against frail Pokemon.

EDIT: I am also a bit iffy about being so stingy with Natural Gift because in Generation IV everything learned it. Even now, 5 of the new Grass-type evolution chains learn it.

 

[JEFLIV]

I wish to present Fake Out and Body Slam. Fake Out does not do a lot of damage but it allows Malacondra to move before the opponent (helpful at low HP) and provides flinching as a viable option. With Fake Out, Malacondra can prevent the opponent from attacking long enough to heal with Leftovers or to do some damage to what would normally be a threat before switching out or fainting. With Body Slam, Malacondra has at least a chance to paralyze after using Payback for some opening damage, after which it can use U-Turn to switch out.

 

[RivRivRiv]

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who voted for Malaconda in the Name Polls.

Now, I'd like to share some thoughts on threatening Electric types. Jas singled out three Electric type Pokemon by name when listing who we want to threaten (Rotom-W, Jolteon and Thunderus-T) so I'll talk about them first:

- Choice Rotom-W is KOed by uninvested Power Whip, and max HP/max Def versions are a guaranteed 2HKO. Rotom-W is immune to Ground moves anyway so Grass is the best type to take it out.

- All common Jolteon spreads are 2HKOed by uninvested Power Whip, but Jolteon can 2HKO with Signal Beam and is obviously faster. Jolteon is, however, 2HKOed by Power Whip + Sucker Punch. For what it's worth uninvested Earthquake is also a 2HKO without Stealth Rock (50% chance to OHKO with rocks). Guaranteed OHKO with Earthquake requires 240 EVs.

- Thunderus-T is more difficult, as it resists Malaconda's Grass STAB and commonly carries Focus Blast to cause significant damage. I'd say it's best to leave this matchup as one where either one could come out on top. We certainly don't want to be be giving Malaconda powerful Rock or Ice moves to make it a hard counter.

So based on this I'm saying Don't give Malaconda moves (especially Earthquake) to deal specifically with Electric types. Two out of the three we want to threaten are immune to Ground, and the other is taken care of just as effectively with strong STAB moves.

 

[capefeather]

Little has really come up concerning the initial moves since my last post, so the Allowed/Disallowed lists officially have stuff in them (the Allowed list already had Dark-type moves but whatever). Wood Hammer got a little bit of negative reaction, though I'm not sure it's really warranted. I've left it out there, anyway, so that people who want to discuss it more can.

It has been pointed out that Natural Gift gives a Flying-type move for Lum Berry and a Psychic-type move for Sitrus Berry, the exact coverage types we just disallowed! Due to this, I'm not sure there's much that can justify it being allowed. Still, it's merely on the chopping block for now.

The main reason I paired Ice and Dragon together was that all of Dragon's targets are also Ice's targets. Thus, I don't think that there's really a reason to disallow Dragon-type moves if Ice-type moves are allowed. I mean, I suppose Dragon is more spammable, but non-STAB Dragon is pretty rare and I don't see that changing on Malaconda if it doesn't even actually cover anything. Now that Flying-type moves are banned, we will need to clarify how far we want to go with Ice at Breloom's expense to hit Ice's targets (noting that no Ice-type move hits Breloom harder than Aerial Ace). This will also help to inform similar situations with Ground- and Fire-type moves.

BTW, Rock- and Ground-type moves are now "officially" in. I anticipate that both will go into Disallowed because they hit stuff like Heatran, Ninetales and Volcarona. Rock also hits Thundurus Therian, but so would a powerful Ice-type move, and even then, Malaconda probably won't be in a hurry to dispose of Thundurus Therian, anyway, considering it's built to take Latios's Draco Meteor.

 

[DFrog]

Ice Coverage: Should be allowed, however, there should be a limited amount of moves that provide Ice coverage that should be given to Malaconda. I think that Ice Fang and possibly even Ice Shard should be the only ice coverage moves CAP5 should receive. This limits the possibility of Malaconda being able to outright knockout dragon threats but also serves as a deterrent for the dragons or Landorus to come in on CAP5.

Fire Coverage: Should be allowed but severely limited i.e. one move only. The sole fire coverage move should be Fire Fang; 65 base power is strong enough to leave a dent in steel pokemon (not named Skarmory) but not strong enough to outright KO'd the threat (unless you happen to be Scizor).

calcs

4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 4HP/0Def Light Metal Scizor (Neutral): 99% - 117% (280 - 332 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO. 96% chance to OHKO.
4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Ferrothorn (+Def): 47% - 56% (168 - 200 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO. 12% chance to 2HKO with Leftovers.
4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Sturdy Forretress (+Def): 45% - 54% (160 - 192 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO. 3% chance to 2HKO with Leftovers.
4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Sturdy Skarmory (+Def): 23% - 28% (80 - 96 HP). Guaranteed 5HKO.
4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Venusaur (+Def): 31% - 37% (114 - 136 HP). Guaranteed 4HKO. Delete
4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 4HP/0Def Leftovers Venusaur (Neutral): 54% - 64% (164 - 194 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
4Atk Shiftry (Neutral) Fire Fang in Sun vs 4HP/0Def Leftovers Sturdy Magnezone (Neutral): 43% - 52% (124 - 148 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252Atk Shiftry (+Atk) Fire Fang in Sun vs 4HP/0Def Leftovers Light Metal Scizor (Neutral): 137% - 163% (388 - 460 HP). Guaranteed OHKO.
252Atk Shiftry (+Atk) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Ferrothorn (+Def): 65% - 78% (232 - 276 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Shiftry (+Atk) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Sturdy Forretress (+Def): 63% - 74% (224 - 264 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Shiftry (+Atk) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Sturdy Skarmory (+Def): 33% - 39% (112 - 132 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252Atk Shiftry (+Atk) Fire Fang in Sun vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Venusaur (+Def): 43% - 51% (158 - 186 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252Atk Shiftry (+Atk) Fire Fang in Sun vs 4HP/0Def Leftovers Venusaur (Neutral): 74% - 88% (226 - 268 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.

All of these calculations have been made assuming optimal condition, meaning the sun is up. With only 4Atk the only pokemon Malaconda can KO is Scizor which CAP5 shouldn't be staying in on anyways because Scizor both outspeeds and has 4 time super effective STAB (*cough*U-Turn*cough*)
Water Coverage: Pointless inside sun and water coverage for Malaconda doesn't necessarily check anything well enough to deserve use.
Rock Coverage: The same stance I have on fire type coverage, allowed but severely limited. Ideally only Rock Slide or other mediocre rock moves with less base power should become apart of the movepool. It gives Malaconda a tool much like Fire and Ice coverage to deter threats to switch into Malaconda, however, should threats like Volcarona or Thunderous-T come there is little Malaconda could actually do without being destroyed by either of Volcarona's STAB's or severely dented by Thunderous' Focus Blast.
Ground Coverage: Nope. Earthquake is simply too powerful for Malaconda to run, being able to deal with Heatran is something CAP5 shouldn't be able to do. Other steel types are decently damaged by Fire Fang that ground coverage shouldn't be necessary.

 

[jas61292]

Well since it has been talked about quite a bit already, I'd like to chime in about Natural Gift. Now, let me make it clear that I support the decision to allow discussion on everything and not throw things in categories from the start. With that said, I can see absolutely no reason why we should ever even consider Natural Gift. It is an atrocious move for what we want to do and has absolutely no place on our Pokemon. The only reason it is even being brought up is because it is the "cool" move with our ability. To put it simply, Natural Gift does absolutely nothing we want. If we want it to have a certain coverage type, we will give it. However, there are certain things we absolutely don't want to be able to hit, and giving ourselves that ability goes completely contrary to what we want to do. Frankly, this is a move with no upsides and massive downsides. I simply can't see how it can be defended.

Anyways, since I am posting, I might as well give my opinions on the other things that were moved over to currently discussing category. As has been said by some, Ground, Rock and Fighting moves are only useful for doing exactly what we don't want to do. The only things they hit are things we want to lose to. There is no reason we should be considering these at all. Also, while I know cape has not yet moved it in to the current discussion, I would just like to add Fire type moves to the mix. Honestly, there is nothing different between fire and fighting or ground moves for our purposes. Like those two types, the only things fire is good at hitting are those Pokemon on our list of chosen threats. Allowing any fire move into the movepool, even a Special Fire attack, would be showing complete disregard to our threats list. It is frankly worse than any of the other types in this regard as Scizor, who is supposed to be one of our top threats cannot switch into us at all if we have fire moves. I don't mean to offend anyone, but, like with Natural Gift, I feel that the only thing that makes people want fire is the fact that we are a sun Pokemon, so it is cool to have fire. But, when you look beyond that, I cannot see a single type of coverage more harmful to our concept goals than Fire.

Finally, Electric. I don't think electric coverage would see much use, but I am inclined to say that we should allow it. The only things it really helps hit are Pokemon like Gyarados or Tentacruel who would be good to threaten. There is really nothing bad about allowing it, so I can't see any reason not to.

 

[Unoriginal Name]

Okay, I've had my opinion swayed away from Natural Gift. Lum and Sitrus, the two "best" berries, are Flying and Psychic. With x2 Super Effective, that's 120 neutral Base Power on a Pokemon we don't even want to have a chance we get. With Toxicroak, Psychic means a 240 Base Power neutral move. Yikes.

Fire, Fighting, Ground and Rock really only hit what we don't want to hit and couldn't hit before. Outside of the Tails and maybe the Fangs (that means only Fire), and maybe perhaps a slightly less powerful than normal Rock, ignore.

Bug should only be in the way of U-Turn and maybe Bug Bite, but if we do get U-Turn, I say no Dragon Tail. It's one or the other; pHazer or momentum grabber, IMO. I believe, for our defensive purposes, go with Dragon Tail. I prefer that over Bug Bite and, later on, I am going to will for a Growth Passer, so not all self-switching moves are banned, IMO. Anyway, not the time to talk about that, so moving on.

Ice Shard has no reason. Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch should be all, IMO. Ice Fang, however, is a nice choice. I see no reason to give it 3 priorities. It would be a coverage machine, and that's not a good thing for a bulky mon, especially a priority move. Oh, and Flavour-wise, it's also makes little sense, but that's besides the point.

I want Fake Out, simply because no one will use it with Malaconda's 4 Moveslot Syndrome, and it'll be unexpected. I mean, Dragon Tail/U-turn/Pursuit - Spin - Grass - Sucker Punch/Pursuit should be standard, in my opinion. A surprise Fake Out will be cool, but when has Fake Out ever been overpowered? That Base Power is kind of small, and it's more of an annoyance move than anything. I'd allow it; however, I see why, with it being so unexpected, it can be hard to predict and switch on (the best Fake Out counter), so I'm kind of meh on this one. So far, I support Fake Out, but just barely.

Hide

Oh, and the tags are right; Malaconda WILL be Caterpie weak. All my teams are, he's so hard to counter. Caterpie for Ubers!

 

[Bughouse]

Wood Hammer

Already mentioned before. I think Wood Hammer is unnecessarily strong and only will encourage distracting Band sets. No other set could possibly choose to use it, nor does it do much for Malaconda. Disallow Wood Hammer.

U-turn

I was unsure earlier because well... it is a contentious move. It's a powerful effect... but I think I've been swayed to say Allow U-turn.

Other Bug-type moves (Celebi, Hydreigon)

Well, once U-turn is allowed, there's no reason to not allow X-Scissor. No one would use it anyway, with U-turn offered. Megahorn should remain disallowed, not that anyone would give a snake Megahorn...

Dragon-type and Ice-type moves (Dragon-types, Gliscor, Landorus, Thundurus, Venusaur, Breloom)

While these provide the same coverage, there is a very diverse range of moves here that should not be discussed together. I definitely see use for allowing Dragon Tail. Perhaps Ice Shard should be allowed as well. But I think any Dragon/Ice attacks above 60 BP should be disallowed.

Low Kick

Disallow Low Kick

Other Fighting-type moves (Normals, Hydreigon, Lucario)

Obviously if I'm against allowing even Low Kick... Disallow Fighting Moves

Electric-type moves (Tentacruel, Gyarados, Skarmory)

Electric is largely redundant with Grass, so I can tentatively say Allow Electric Moves. Skarmory is the only thing on this list that slightly worries me, though I think since even SpDef Skarm avoids the 2HKO from a 252+ attack Malaconda using Wild Charge, we should be fine.

Ground-type moves (Tentacruel, Heatran, Jirachi, Lucario, Magnezone, Ninetales, Toxicroak)

Disallow Ground Moves

Rock-type moves (Ninetales, Thundurus, Volcarona)

Disallow Rock Moves

Natural Gift

Disallow Natural Gift. I've long since been convinced that Natural Gift is not broken. But it's unnecessary and distracting from the concept. That's enough for me.

 

[alexwolf]

Already mentioned before. I think Wood Hammer is unnecessarily strong and only will encourage distracting Band sets.

Power Whip is a better move than Wood Hammer on any set that doesn't have Sitrus Berry, and even on Sitrus Berry sets it is debatable. It honestly bugs me why some people think Wood Hammer is a better move than Power Whip.

Also noob question, but will Rapid Spin be discussed here or in the non attacking moves thread?

Finally, what about Horn Leech? I think it would be a nice move for Malaconda to have, trading power for longevity, something useful for attacking sets that won't have reliable recovery or even for Sitrus Berry sets that can't heal so reliably.

 

[dwarfstar]

I believe Rapid Spin will be classified as a non-attacking move, since it has 20 BP and is only used to get rid of hazards etc. I mean, TECHNICALLY it does damage, but for all intents and purposes, it doesn't.

 

[Shiruba]

Power Whip is a better move than Wood Hammer on any set that doesn't have Sitrus Berry, and even on Sitrus Berry sets it is debatable. It honestly bugs me why some people think Wood Hammer is a better move than Power Whip.

Also noob question, but will Rapid Spin be discussed here or in the non attacking moves thread?

Finally, what about Horn Leech? I think it would be a nice move for Malaconda to have, trading power for longevity, something useful for attacking sets that won't have reliable recovery or even for Sitrus Berry sets that can't heal so reliably.

Isn't this going against the main purpose of this CAP that we've decided on? I may be mistaken, but I believe Malaconda is intended to be a defensive pivot to free up team slots, no? Making a bulky attacker seems to go against that end, in my eyes.

 

[Bughouse]

Obviously Power Whip is a superior move to Wood Hammer. I wasn't arguing the reverse. However, when using something as slow as Malaconda, you can't always afford misses. And Power Whip has less than perfect accuracy. Wood Hammer's is perfect.

It'd at least be a consideration, and a bad one to have at that, imo.

 

[ganj4lF]

Power Whip: allowed, for sure; there's no harm in giving it a powerful Grass attack, and it's probably even needed. I don't see the necessity of Wood Hammer, however I'm not really decided on it.

U-Turn: allow it. U-Turn is a great move for a pivot with horrid coverage, it would give Malaconda the opportunity to not forfeit momentum completely against predicted switch-ins, although it's probably too slow to U-Turn in their face. I'm not sold on the argument "U-Turn allows it to beat Heatran by Dugtrio trapping": it's not Malaconda that beats Heatran, it's Dugtrio, and it would do so anyway most of the times (especially if Malaconda can Spin, so removing the harm for Dugtrio's Focus Sash and allowing it to switch into non-Scarf, non-Balloon Heatran safely).

Ice and Dragon coverage: Disallow everything; the only two moves I can see as exceptions are Ice Fang and Dragon Tail. Ice Shard is unnecessary since CAP5 will be probably able to use Sucker Punch; other Ice coverage moves (and Dragon ones) are not harmful to our threat list, however they don't help much in achieving anything intended for CAP5, especially if U-Turn is allowed. So, to sum up, Disallow anything not named Ice Fang and Dragon Tail (I'm still undecided onto these two moves).

Electric coverage: Allow Wild Charge and Thunder Fang: the only meaningful use is to hit Gyarados / Tentacruel as argued previously, and that cannot hurt at all.

Ground, Fighting, Rock coverage: Disallow any competitive move of those types for the reasons already discussed by everyone. It works against our threatlist, and having U-Turn fixes the possible complete loss of momentum.

Bug coverage: Besides U-Turn, I guess these moves are not excessively harmful, not excessively useful to our concept; they allow to hit Celebi and Hydreigon harder than Ice Fang, but that's it. I certainly would disallow Megahorn, I'm still undecided on lower BP moves like X-Scissor.

I don't have a clear opinion on Natural Gift, but I'm leaning towards disallowing it seeing the previous arguments: it's likely to allow us to use a Flying / Psychic attack that are already been disallowed.

 

[Deck Knight]

Going to be addressing more of the Pending List:

Water-type moves: HELL NO! Water type moves invite Malaconda to be used on Rain teams solely because it will get psuedo-STAB on the water attack and a cut in its fire weakness. LumHarvest is still serviceable in Rain (w/ Sitrus less so), but there is absolutely no reason to give Malaconda any undue synergy with Rain. Disallow Water moves.

Fire-type moves: While intriguing because of the synergy with sun, the problem is that Fire-type moves directly assault 3/4s of our "should be threatened by list" categorically, doing everything from hitting Steel and Bug types to additional damage on Breloom and Toxicroak. While Ice Fang does have some overlap on Breloom, Ice Fang doesn't get a 50% damage boost from the weather we want Malaconda to support, or any of the other coverage issues Fire brings up. Disallow Fire moves.

On Ice and Dragon moves:

My particular opinion is allow them in concept. unSTAB Dragon attacks are never used for one reason and one reason only: Nothing is 4x weak to them. They are thus terrible coverage moves, and it's compounded by the fact their two strongest attacks have huge negative drawbacks. Even Dragon Rush which doesn't lock or ruin SpA only has a ridiculous 75% Acc.

Ice is a different story - it is used commonly because it scores so many hits on 4x weaknesses that just happen to be strong metagame threats. Most of these threats are Sand-based, and Sun has as many issues with Sand as it does with Rain. Given our stats, the only thing Ice moves do is ensure that any filler slot has an option to prevent Malaconda from being a sitting duck against these threats.

I do however agree that we don't want Ice moves to become staples, and as such I would oppose any Ice coverage stronger than Ice Fang. The exception would be on the special side, where I'd allow Ice Beam but not Blizzard. While I realize special moves aren't really competitive, I thought I would point it out since even weak SpA stats can be utilized with 4x weak targetters like Blizzard to do significant damage.

Allow Physical Ice Moves <=65 BP, Allow Ice Beam but not Blizzard, Allow Dragon Moves.

Priority:

So given the above, I'm definitely a fan of priority. Sucker Punch is excellent, and I would support Ice Shard as well. The closest comparable unSTAB Ice Shard user is Donphan, which fluctuates between OU and UU and hits a lot harder, and uses boosting items occasionally given Sturdy affords it that luxury. Ice Shard off 100 Atk is not going to turn Malaconda into a Dragon Slayer, it is however going to give it a pinch ability to prevent a Sand sweep or a Dragon sweep, two things sun teams fear more than Rain or other teams due to Sun's general makeup.

On that note as much as I like priority I'm opposed to Fake Out because it is at cross purposes with the function we want Malaconda to have - it essentially turns Malaconda into a chip damage switchin, which isn't something relevant to sun teams and their types.

Allow Sucker Punch and Ice Shard, disallow Fake Out.