CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 10 - Attacking Moves Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'd like to talk a bit about priority.

Priority

We have a few options concerning priority - Vacuum Wave, Mach Punch, Sucker Punch, Quick Attack, Extremespeed, Aqua Jet, Ice Shard, Feint, and Fake Out.

Quick Attack, Vacuum Wave, and Feint aren't really competitively viable on Malaconda, so we can throw those out of this competitive discussion.

Concerning Mach Punch - Is overshadowed by Sucker Punch, and even the others. Malaconda would gain priority on Ice-types, Steel-types, and Dark-types, but none of those (besides the occasional Steel-type) make appearances on Rain teams, meaning Mach Punch isn't the most essential move on Malaconda. Leave that up to the flavor bit.

Concerning Sucker Punch - Yes yes yes yes yes. The most necessary priority. It gets STAB, and hit Lati@s super effectively, and has good BP. It's even predictable, making it non-OP. Definitely supporting it.

Concerning Ice Punch - A very hard move to decide on. While being a low BP and really starting to give it 4-moveslot syndrome, it's actually fairly helpful on Malaconda. It could even deal with a few of Rain's main Pokémon (Dragonite, Tornadus, and Thundurus). So, I would support allowing Ice Shard, because it can help make Malaconda a strong counter to these Pokémon if a team lacks one with Malaconda's niche.

Concerning Fake Out - A very helpful move. Malaconda could break Focus Sashes, and it really doesn't boost Malaconda's potential too much. I would support it, since it could be used as a scouting move, helping Malaconda's survivability.

Concerning Extremespeed - Normal-type doesn't really get enough coverage to really warrant adding this to Malaconda's movepool. It does have +2 priority, which with a Swords Dance boost or something could become potential, but with the other priority moves I've discussed, it seems like Extremespeed would just be another move adding to Malaconda's 4-moveslot syndrome, which we need to try to avoid. So I don't support Extremespeed.

Concerning Aqua Jet - Nope. No no no. This is a terrible move to put on a Pokémon with which we're attempting to boost Sun teams. Aqua Jet would gain psuedo-STAB in the Rain, and would become fairly helpful in ridding Malaconda of it's weaknesses to Fire-types. This would warrant Malaconda's use on Rain teams, which is one of the main things we're attempting to accomplish.
 
Now that I have a computer and was able to think about things, I can expand on my last post. Mainly, I want to talk about Natural Gift, and why it should be disallowed. Most people who have talked about Natural Gift have said that we need it because "good coverage, like Hidden Power, too weak, etc." However, we've already disallowed Flying and Psychic coverage, and the two berries that will be used most often, Lum and Sitrus, give a 60 base power Flying or Psychic attack respectively. While weak, they are enough to kill things that are supposed to be checks or counters, such as Breloom or Toxicroak. I remember the reason we gave Malaconda a low Special Attack is because we don't want to have counters be destroyed by random Hidden Powers. Giving it Natural Gift give it an alternative to Hidden Power to destroy said counters. Disallow Natural Gift.

Now for priority moves. I do want to voice support for Ice Shard. Since it's weak, non-STAB, and comes from a fairly low Attack, it likely won't be used as a sweeping tool, and can be used to pick off weakened Dragons/Flying types. I also gave reasons of support for Sucker Punch in my last post. That said, Ice Shard and Sucker Punch are sufficient priority attacks. No other priority needs consideration; Aqua Jet will encourage rain use, Extremespeed could become an issue if we give it a boosting move like Swords Dance, and all others are rather redundant with what we currently have. Allow Sucker Punch and Ice Shard. Disallow all other priority attacking moves.
 
Eh, Fire-type moves are being talked about, anyway, so it's on the Needs Discussion list.

The consensus seems to be to possibly allow Ice Fang for being the weakest 60+ base power Ice-type move, and there was a post by DFrog supporting Fire Fang for OHKOing only Scizor in the sun. I point out DFrog's post because I'd like to see more of that detailed reasoning, going beyond just allowing the weakest "competitive" move of a type. Maybe even that is too strong, or maybe it doesn't matter if we allow slightly stronger moves. For instance, I find it relevant that uninvested Ice Fang misses the guaranteed 2HKO on Breloom, while uninvested Icicle Crash does not.
 
Regarding Final Gambit, Mach Punch, Low Kick and other Fighting moves:

Final Gambit should be the only Fighting move we have, TBH. Fighting moves briskly take care of Kyurem-B and demolish certain other counters, too. Really, Fighting moves, and thus Low Kick, really shouldn't be here. If we really want a weight-based damage move, let's go with Grass Knot; I see no reason why Low Kick is better for the concept or the goal, as inanimate blob reinforced when he discussed Mach Punch; there is simply no reason, and it will only hinder our goal, if anything.

Final Gambit, however, is different. In my humble opinion, Final Gambit is not overpowered. With our slightly above average HP, it may seem strong, doing flat damage off of our HP. However, remember that Sitrus is a pinch berry, so we'll stay above 25%, sure, but not get to 100%. Likewise, I think KOing the user is a nice balancing point for flat damage; similarly, Explosion and Self Destruct should not be allowed, as, not only do they not make sense Flavour-wise, but they simply are too strong against frailer sweepers, including many of our checks, regardless of our HP, and I think that may be a little too strong, given Sitrus.
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
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.
Horn Leech helps defensive sets too, as i said. And while offensive sets are not our main concern, giving them a small boost is fine as long as they don't overshadow the defensive sets, as they add a bit of versatility to the CAP, which is positive imo. Allow Horn Leech!

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.
While misses suck, so does losing health, especially when you don't have passive recovery from Lefties and are so slow. You basically say that Power Whip is the superior move and then you say that we should give Power Whip to the CAP but not Wood Hammer... I don't really care if we give it Wood Hammer or not, as long as it gets Power Whip, but i don't get you reasoning.

About Ice Fang. I don't like Ice Fang because it takes Breloom out of the counters list. A max HP / max Def Malaconda can take even a CB Adamant Mach Punch from Breloom after SR (73.27 - 86.17%) and 2HKO with Ice Fang 50% of the time if it predicts the switch-in, and always 2HKOes if Breloom has LO and SR is up with zero investment. I am not saying that 2HKOing Breloom when predicting the switch-in is the end of the world, as there are several Pokemon that can stop Breloom on sun teams (Venusar, Xatu, CBNite and Victini), but it is definitely something that we should avoid unless the positives that Ice Fang brings are too big too ignore. However, this is not the case. Ice Shard is enough to do the job, which is to prevent Landorus and physical Dragon-types from setting up freely on Malaconda. 0 Atk Ice Shard always OHKOes Landorus after SR and Power Whip, meaning that Landorus can't freely setup with Rock Polish, as if it does and Malaconda stays in it will get 2HKOed. The same is true for DD Dragonite as well, which loses a minimum of 73% damage from Payback + Ice Shard, meaning that with just 28 Atk EVs the CAP always 2HKOes Dragonite after SR with Payback + Ice Shard (Ice Shard does 39.62 - 47.05% and Payback does 36.22 - 42.72%). So Ice Shard does everything we need but doesn't mess with out counters list, unlike Ice Fang, which is uneeded. Allow Ice Shard and disallow Ice Fang.

About Final Gambit. I won't say much about this move, just that it is completely irrelevant to Malaconda's role and messes with its counters. Disallow Final Gambit.

Finally, capefeather you have priority moves in the pending list and Dark moves in the allowed list, so what's up with Sucker Punch?

Anyway, if Sucker Punch is still discussed, then allow Sucker Punch. It helps Malaconda to better deal with Lati@s and is a useful STAB move in general that gives to sun teams some much need priority, while not messing at all with our counters list.

Aslo disallow every other priority other than Ice Shard and Sucker Punch. Aqua Jet, Mach Punch, Fake Out, Extremespeed, Shadow Sneak, and everything else i might have missed don't help the CAP at all with its role and give it coverage against threats we don't want it to.
 

Brambane

protect the wetlands
is a Contributor Alumnus
About Ice Fang. I don't like Ice Fang because it takes Breloom out of the counters list. A max HP / max Def Malaconda can take even a CB Adamant Mach Punch from Breloom after SR (73.27 - 86.17%) and 2HKO with Ice Fang 50% of the time if it predicts the switch-in, and always 2HKOes if Breloom has LO and SR is up with zero investment.
252 Atk Choice Band Technician Breloom Low Sweep vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 434-512 (100 - 117.97%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Why are you using Mach Punch when you have a guaranteed KO with Low Sweep, in addition to lowering the Speed of anything that switches in should Malaconda choose to flee? CAP5 won't have the chance to 2HKO because it will die unless you are playing Breloom poorly.
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
252 Atk Choice Band Technician Breloom Low Sweep vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 434-512 (100 - 117.97%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Why are you using Mach Punch when you have a guaranteed KO with Low Sweep, in addition to lowering the Speed of anything that switches in should Malaconda choose to flee? CAP5 won't have the chance to 2HKO because it will die unless you are playing Breloom poorly.
Ok disregard Choice Band i forgot about Low Sweep. However, the CAP still can beat SD Breloom if it predicts the switch-in, a very popular set as Spore doesn't work thanks to Lum Berry and Mach Punch doesn't OHKO. And anyway even if Breloom OHKOes with Low Seep, why do we want to 2HKO Breloom if it is in our counters list? Even if we can't immediately 2HKO it, we can prevent it from switching in Malaconda more than once, taking it off of the list of counters. On the other hand, Ice Shard deals with whatever we want to without messing with our counters at all, so i don't see any reason for Ice Fang.
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
I've been hoping for something that will at least let us dent Scizor though most of the project, since I was inclined to think that Ninetales/Malaconda is at a disadvantage against Politoed/Scizor otherwise. This was because Politoed can hit 'conda with SE Ice Beam or poison it with Toxic, while the discussions were indicating that 'conda would likely be unable to scratch Scizor, plus is terrified of U-turn. I'm not so concerned about this now, as the stats we picked protect us from Ice Beam and the ability can handle Toxic, but Scizor's ability to grab momentum is still problematic. I no longer mind disallowing Fighting coverage, which seems to what will happen, but if we do that, we must allow U-turn if we want to even the matchup of rain and sun. Fire Fang is interesting too, but I think at this point we can shift the balance of weather power without allowing it to beat any of its counters outright.
 
I want to bring up Super Fang again, which I originally supported but have reconsidered somewhat. Much like Final Gambit, it's a niche move that let's Malaconda do some decent damage to (but not kill) its switch ins without attack investment, but at the cost of momentum. I'd rather have U-Turn and be able pivot out of hard counters than use Super Fang, but using Final Gambit at least wouldn't loose momentum. So if had to chose between the two, I'd say ditch Super Fang and allow Final Gambit.

Also, I'm very against Fire, Water, Fighting, Ground and Rock coverage. These moves are best left to others, and Water moves promote Rain usage.

Electric and Steel should be allowed and Dragon limited to Dragon Tail. Thunder Fang, Wild Charge, and Gyro Ball all seem logical.

As for the Ice coverage, Ice Fang and Ice Shard should suffice.
 

Nyktos

Custom Loser Title
Right, since a bunch of things were added to the Needs Discussion list within minutes of me finishing my previous post, I guess I'll have to post again! I don't have a strong position on everything yet (still on the fence about both U-turn and Ice Fang), so I'll stick to what I do.

Wood Hammer
Honestly, I don't care in the slightest whether this is allowed, since Power Whip is much better and already is. But I find the arguments against this...bizarre, to say the least. Is Wood Hammer arguably better than Power Whip with Sitrus? Yeah, I guess. Even there I would probably prefer Whip. Sitrus only heals 25% of your max HP, after all, and it's not really unreasonable that the recoil might be doing more than that to you. At best Wood Hammer and Power Whip are about equally powerful on a Sitrus set, and with any other item ever, Power Whip is unquestionably better. As before, I agree with the general principle of avoiding unnecessary moves, but this is just outclassed and the idea of Power Whip being allowed while Wood Hammer is not is just very strange. I don't really intend to argue this further as it makes minimal competitive difference, but my position is that we should allow Wood Hammer.

Putting this here because I'm going to be referring to it a bunch:
Threaten:
Psychic types: especially Latios & Latias
Water types: most notably Politoed
Ghost types: Gengar and Jellicent
Electric types: Rotom-W, Jolteon, Thundurus-T

Be threatened by:
Steel types: including Heatran and especially Scizor
Bug types: Volcarona (and Scizor again) most imporatantly
Fire types: Ninetales and Infernape, for example
Some fighting types: such as Breloom and Toxicroak
Fighting coverage (including Low Kick)
Of the specific Pokémon mentioned on the threatlist, five out of eight resist or are immune to Fighting. Not a single one is weak to it. That is, on its own, a pretty good reason not to give Malaconda Fighting coverage. There doesn't seem to be a lot of disagreement with the idea that Malaconda doesn't need extensive coverage to achieve what we want it to, and Fighting clearly isn't helping much with our goals. Low Kick (and Close Combat) are particularly bad, because with no attack investment they let Malaconda 2HKO offensive Heatran. The likes of Brick Break are less bad of ideas, but until I see some reason that Fighting coverage is a positive as opposed to sorta maybe not a negative, I will support disallowing all Fighting attacks.

Ground and Rock coverage
These hit super-effectively on Fire, which is a really bad idea since not only are we meant to lose to Fire-types, stepping back to the original concept we're specifically trying to increase their usage in OU! Yes, we're doing that mainly by encouraging sun teams, but if non-sun teams use Fire-types to help against Malaconda, that's helping the concept as well. Ground and Rock moves maul Heatran and Volcarona respectively, both of which are specifically mentioned as counters. The stronger ones (Stone Edge and Earthquake) also guarantee 2HKOs on Ninetales after rocks. And again, they do nothing to help us against the things we actually want to threaten.

Yes, we're supposed to hit Electric-types which are theoretically weak to Ground, but two of the three Electrics mentioned are immune to Ground, and Jolteon is taking a bundle from Power Whip anyway. The one OU Electric against which Ground would actually be a major help is Magnezone, and since that's also Steel it's sort of in limbo with respect to our threatlist anyway. I don't think we need to go out of our way to beat Magnezone, do you? Disallow Ground and Rock attacks.

Fire coverage
Fire helps to tie us to sun, yes, but also tears apart our best counter while once again doing nothing exciting to the things we actually want to threaten. Fire Fang might (I stress might) be acceptable, but even that feels like going too far to me. Sure, it can't OHKO Scizor outside of sun, but it still 2HKOes with no investment, and even in sun we don't want to be unbeatable. There are other ways to avoid being a liability against Scizor, such as U-turn and Substitute, which don't require completely throwing out the idea that Scizor is supposed to be anything resembling a counter. Disallow Fire attacks.

Natural Gift
There is no conceivable reason I can think of that this should be allowed. No, it's not going to be particularly broken, but seriously, consider for a minute what this move represents: coverage of every single type. Remember: we have full control over Malaconda's movepool! Any coverage type that it actually needs, we can give it. Any coverage type that it doesn't need, it shouldn't get from Natural Gift any more than it should from a "real" move of that type. Natural Gift does nothing but give us less control over the scope of Malaconda's coverage. Nothing at all. Disallow Natural Gift.

Other Grass moves
There are two competitive physical Grass moves that aren't on the discussion list: Bullet Seed and Horn Leech. Probably they should be addressed.

Of the two, I think Bullet Seed is fine. It's only marginally stronger than Power Whip with five hits, and the chances of that happening are a lot less than 85%. It has niche use in breaking subs, though most of the sub-users we want to beat are resistant to Grass anyway. That said it's something that is clearly worse than Power Whip but still has the potential to be occasionally useful, and I think that's just fine. It's not particularly important, but I don't see any real reason not to allow Bullet Seed.

Horn Leech, on the other hand, I am not so fond of. Malaconda is going to have excellent recovery options in LumRest, Sitrus Berry, and perhaps Moonlight/Synthesis. I don't think it needs an extra one, which in all likelyhood won't be especially effective on it anyway. (Defensive sets need Power Whip to get KOs, and offensive sets want the 120 BP for massive domages.) Admittedly, I have argued for allowing other moves that are outclassed by Power Whip, but those were moves that don't really do anything but deal damage. Horn Leech, as much as I feel it's inferior, does add an extra consideration with its healing, and I don't think it's one that's worth dealing with as we don't really gain all that much from having access to Horn Leech anyway. Disallow Horn Leech.
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
My recommendations for our "up for discussion" moves are as follows:

Allow Wood Hammer. Honestly, there's nothing OP about it. That recoil is going to hurt, and basically forces Malaconda to run Sitrus Berry to break even. Given his low Speed and decidedly average Attack, there's no way this is going to break him.

Allow U-turn. U-turning to Dugtrio doesn't mean Malaconda himself is beating Heatran; it means DUGTRIO is beating Heatran, which is what he's there for in the first place. A Heatran switch-in would get the Balloon broken by Rapid Spin or one of the offensive moves anyway, so it's not even that big an issue. Regarding other Bug attacks, I don't really have an opinion one way or the other.

Disallow all Fighting-type moves. Those would actually give Malaconda a way to beat Heatran and his Steel-type brethren, which we want to avoid. For the same reason, I'm going to recommend we disallow all Ground-type moves (despite how amusing Bulldoze would be).

Allow all physical Dragon-type moves. I don't see why people would want to disallow any of them. Nothing has a compound (i.e. 4x) weakness to Dragon, and most of the physical Dragon attacks are pretty terrible unless you have STAB on them. The only exception is Dragon Tail, and this doesn't make Malaconda particularly dangerous to anything it didn't pose a major threat to from the outset. Dragonite and Salamence are both going to smash Malaconda before he'd get the chance to use the attack, meaning it's only useful on a predicted switch or against something Malaconda walls 24/7. Not scary at all.

Allow Ice Fang; disallow other Ice attacks. Ice Shard, on the other hand, is actually threatening to Dragons. Granted, uninvested base 100 Attack isn't all that much to work with, but if memory serves we don't want to be able to cause drawback-free pain to Dragonite and Salamence. Ice Fang requires correct prediction to be viable at all, since both of the aforementioned Dragons can blast Malaconda with Outrage before he gets the chance to attack if the user is foolish enough to stay in - for reference, 252+ Dragonite's +0 Outrage is a guaranteed OHKO on 252/0 Malaconda after Stealth Rock, and very likely to KO even without it. As for Breloom, which we agreed should threaten Malaconda, an Ice Fang with a neutral nature and 8 EVs invested will only 2HKO 3.52% of the time, which is basically irrelevant for our purposes.

Disallow Rock-type moves. Malaconda has no business staying in on Volcarona or Ninetales anyway.

Allow Fire Fang, but disallow all other Fire moves. DFrog's calculations prove Fire Fang is not unbalanced even in the sunlight and don't interfere too much with the Bug issues we're supposed to have.

Allow Electric-type moves. I see no conceptual downside to smacking Gyarados (and to a lesser extent, Tentacruel and Skarmory).

Disallow Natural Gift. My main issue with this is the fact that you can essentially remove a Fire or Fighting weakness with the Occa and Chople berries, respectively, while simultaneously handing yourself a Fire or Fighting attack with 80 BP, which conflicts with our exclusion of Fighting moves and halfway decent Fire attacks from the movepool.


With those urgent topics out of the way, let's look at the pending attacks.

Disallow all priority outside of Sucker Punch. Mach Punch and Ice Shard are excluded for typing reasons, Quick Attack and Shadow Sneak are functionally useless, and Aqua Jet is conducive to use on a rain team.

Disallow Water attacks. This is designed to be a sun-based Pokemon, and the availability of Water moves would just help rain teams. They have issues with Lati@s and Rotom-W, and I don't want Malaconda being their go-to guy for dealing with these threats.

Disallow Final Gambit. Getting rid of your defensive pivot/possible spinner is just ridiculous, honestly, and the fact that Malaconda is so slow means he'll be taking a hit before he gets a chance to use the move (and therefore won't be doing as much with it). There's no point in allowing it.

Allow Super Fang. Nothing slower than Malaconda outside of Ferrothorn cares about this, since Reuniclus and Slowbro both fear him for other reasons and Conkeldurr can smash Malaconda regardless of what he's doing. Breloom, Heatran, Scizor, and most everything else that threatens Malaconda will beat him with or without half of their HP chopped off.
On another note, I think I've justified including Super Fang from a non-flavor perspective, so let me say this: the Japanese name of the move translates to "Hatred Fang". Is there anything more perfect for Malaconda?
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
On the pending list:

Priority moves - Yes to Sucker Punch, obviously. It was already a yes. None of the others are necessary, but I can also support Allowing Shadow Sneak as it's inferior to Sucker Punch. Ice Shard feels unnecessary, though I may be convinceable otherwise.

Water-type moves - NO. Disallow

Final Gambit - Sure why not? Allow

Super Fang - Allow
 

jas61292

used substitute
is a Community Contributoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
This shouldn't be a long post, but I just want to mention something that is true in general, that has specifically been brought up with regard to Fire moves, specificially Fire Fang. The fact that I want to make clear is this: calculations in isolation are not acceptable reasoning.

A couple people have referenced DFrog's post, saying that they think it showed that Fire Coverage would be fine to have, and yet, when I look at it, all I see are a bunch of calculations showing all our counters taking large chunks of damage. Maybe some people might look at those calcs and think that it is not too powerful, but even so, not being too powerful is not a reason in favor of Fire moves. I personally see Fire as the most harmful coverage we could give CAP5, so if you are going to disagree and say we should have it, you really need to explain why it is good to have. Simply stating that it might not be bad is not going to cut it.
 
just want to put punishment out.

not only does it work with the forbidden apple metaphor but I also think it comfortably hits calm mind latias. Any rainy volcarona may switch in and assume a free set up turn. now however assuming entry hazards base 120 power punishment becomes very dangerous. sunny volcarona however can go for fiery dance or fire blast and hope for a kill while hurricane needs more in reality. it hits dragonite much harder especially if a DD is taken which is a possibility again because it may attempt to fear switch malaconda. my biggest concern is it's use against growth venausaur who would really suffer from a 140 base power attack and from a venausaur whose hp fire probably doesn't cut it against 130 base sp.def.

some other rain threats hit harder by punishment:

-DD gyarados
-occasional calm mind raikou
-calm mind rachi
-not uncommon bulky celebi with calm mind or offensive with nasty plot
-rare gorebyss shell smash if given grass move weaker than 90 base powah
 

Brambane

protect the wetlands
is a Contributor Alumnus
I would like to propose Bolt Strike.

Let's be honest, Tentacruel, Tornadus, Skarmory and Gyarados are all going to laugh at CAP5. Do we want that? HELL NO. Some people might say ThunderFang would suffice, but why settle for less when you can have more? Bolt Strike is the manliest attack in existent. Common rain threats like Gyarados, Pelipper and Starly stand NO CHANCE against this kind of attacking power. Rain will cower at Malaconda's Power Whip/Bolt Strike combination. We will kick Politoed out of business and sun with reign (pun intended) supreme! Want some calcs? Check them out:
APRIL FOOLS
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Priority moves
Water-type moves
Final Gambit
Super Fang

Priority moves are beneficial to this Pokemon because they mitigate Malaconda's low Speed and allow Malaconda to defeat the Pokemon that it should threaten. Sucker Punch, although it may not be a staple move for Malaconda, definitely deserves to be allowed so Malaconda can unconditionally defeat Choice-locked Latios and Latias, and more importantly be able to force a mind game to defeat Pokemon faster than it. If Malaconda happens to be at low HP it may not be able to restore its HP or be fast enough to get off an attack, Sucker Punch provides a last-ditch way for Malaconda to get past an opponent. Now, we should not be throwing priority on Malaconda like Oprah...

("you get a priority move! And you get a priority move! And you get a priority move!)

Back to seriousness. Fighting-type priority should be disallowed because it allows Malaconda to lop of the last 20% off of Pokemon it should not be able to beat, so Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave (lol) should be off the table. Ice Shard, however, I'm inclined to allow because Malaconda could use it to squeak by a Thundurus-Therian or a Lati@s that might not be attacking. Although Breloom is threatened by Ice Shard, Ice Shard is still a marginally powerful move and by no means a locked addition to Malaconda's eventual movepool. Shadow Sneak is a fine, albeit inferior, option.

Allow all non-Fighting type priority moves besides Aqua Jet. Disallow Fighting-type priority moves and Aqua Jet.

Water-type moves are hilariously bad for the concept, although Malaconda in all honesty deserves Aqua Tail for flavor reasons. Too bad flavor reasoning is invalid, so Disallow all Water-type moves.

Final Gambit is largely unnecessary and quite anti-concept. A high-HP Pokemon such as Malaconda could nuke a Pokemon with Final Gambit especially if Malaconda switched in on a Pokemon that's slow and non-threatening such as Reuniclus or Ferrothorn. Just because Malaconda switches in safely does not mean that it deserves a free kill on a Pokemon that most likely is designed to counter it. Disallow Final Gambit.

Super Fang is a bit iffy. I'm inclined to disallow it because Malaconda shouldn't be allowed to hit Pokemon like Heatran for 50% damage, but keep in mind that most Pokemon Malaconda threatens will take more than 50% damage from Malaconda's STAB attacks. That, in my opinion, makes Super Fang more anti-concept than pro-concept, but Super Fang is not a bad choice for an allowed move on Malaconda. I guess Disallow Super Fang, but it's no big deal tbh.
 

ginganinja

It's all coming back to me now
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
U-turn

I am sorta 50/50 on U-Turn. For a defensive Pivot, the move would be great since you can take a hit, and then bring in your sun sweeper and have a blast. U-Turn also doesn't offer much in the way of super effective coverage bar something like Hydreigon which I guess is noteworthy but outside of that its limited. The real problem I see with U-Turn is that it really does take Heatran out of the list of counters (as well as Ninetales I guess) since it really is easy to remove Heatran from the game. You don't even need to predict the switch, Malaconda is quite capable of tanking a fire attack and U-Turning out, giving Dugtrio the easy revenge while Malaconda can some in later and rest off any damage taken.

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

Ok, Ice (and Dragon) moves I am heavily against. As it is, Malaconda is beating most of the pokemon that give sun trouble, giving it coverage on EVERYTHING that gives sun trouble, really threatens to break sunlight. Remember, this CAP is for the OU metagame, a metagame where even without Malaconda, several OU players reckon Sun is broken. Having Malaconda beat latios and Latias is fine, but the moment you give it ice coverage, you open up oppotunities for Band sets (Ice / Dark / Grass isn't bad coverage) and regardless, hitting Dragonite, Garchomp, Hydreigon, Breloom and Salamence pretty much makes Malaconda able to beat every single threat to sun teams with Dugtiro Support (not hard to achieve if we give it U-Turn). I see no reason to give it Ice or Dragon coverage.
 
Hey guys, I noticed some changes to the things on "pending" so I am jut gonna tell you my thoughts on the things in pending.

First, priority moves, I believe may be one of the most important parts of Malaconda and I can't stress it enough.Particularly Sucker punch, which will OHKO several choiced Pokemon we are trying to threaten such as specs Latios/Latias and scarf Gengar. It also gives support to fighting off several ghosts such as Jellicent and maybe even Chandelure. Sucker punch could easily turn CAP5 into a great revenge killer. However, I don't want to base my arguments around that as Mala's purpose is still being decided as we speak. Anyway, another important priority move is Ice shard for taking down several double-weak Pokemon like dragonite/salamance/landorus/gliscor/etc. which are all very common in the game. So I really urge for Ice shard and Sucker punch to be allowed. When it comes to other priority moves, I don't see much purpose, but the argument of disallowing them because they aren't useful makes no sense because I don't see any disadvantage either so I will abstain from voting on those.

Next I would like to point out how water moves go against the purpose of CAP5 completely, as we are trying to lower the usage of water type Pokemon and rain team with Malaconda. Water type moves on Mala might make him viable in rain, and that would make rain more viable, not less. So to protect the "type equalizer" concept I suggest we disallow all water moves. On the other side, Fire type moves will make Mala much more helpful on sun teams, possibly giving it a chance to shine as a sun supporter will definitely make sun teams more viable, and we are trying to increase the use of less used types such as fire. So I would allow all fire moves.

I have nothing to say about super fang, so my last comment is on final gambit which in every way should be disallowed because of 2 huge reasons. The first being that CAP5 won't be much use supporting the use of under used types if his only purpouse is to go in to battle and die asap. There are much better kamikaze Pokemon (my fav is Staraptor but I digress) and we shouldn't just be exploiting one stat on CAP5, we should be utilizing all of them. The second huge reason? Speed. Plain and simple, even if we wanted final gambit to be viable on Mala it would be hard to pull off when he is almost guaranteed to attack last.
 
On the other side, Fire type moves will make Mala much more helpful on sun teams, possibly giving it a chance to shine as a sun supporter will definitely make sun teams more viable, and we are trying to increase the use of less used types such as fire. So I would allow all fire moves.
Can I just say that there is a threat list and giving this thing ALL of the fire moves is likely to completely break something?

Fire Fang is one thing, something like V-Create (no, Tmon/Yilx, this is not getting V-Create just so you can use it in Ubers/spam IRC) is quite another.
 
I feel Malaconda really, really does need ice coverage, and not just to deter dragon set up, but for ground types too.

Think synergy: Malaconda's going to be switching into Earthquakes and Earth Powers aimed at his fire buddies left and right. That was half the reason we wanted him to be a grass type. Not all ground types are weak to grass. Being able to threaten Gliscor and Landorus would really help sun.

It also makes sense for Malaconda to be a Acrobatic-less Gliscor counter because with Lum Berry it's immune to Toxic.

Ice Shard repels a Landorus that would just U-Turn out and do sizeable damage to Malaconda.

Ice or die.
 
May I contribute?

Hi.

Wood Hammer

If we're allowing Power Whip--which is generally a superior option for a defensive pokemon--I see little reason to disallow its recoil-inducing counterpart. The only time I forsee anyone using Wood Hammer is with a Sitrus berry, which then hampers Malaconda's defensive capabilities by making it vulnerable to Toxic and Breloom's Spore. Even Choice Banded the move is not all that great and is walled by Scizor's compound resistance to it. Allow Wood Hammer.

U-turn, Volt Switch

As people have stated already, giving Malaconda U-turn prevents it from becoming a sitting duck against Heatran and Scizor while also sustaining momentum, which is vital for Sun teams. Allow U-turn.

Bug-type "coverage"

Bug coverage overlaps with Malaconda's Dark-type STABs, so I'm not really opposed to it. The only pokemon a Bug-type move might hit harder than STAB Sucker Punch or activated Payback is Celebi. Additionally, Bug-type coverage creates interesting Malaconda vs. Malaconda scenarios as it gives the pokemon the ability to counter itself (Ouroboros, anyone?). I'm all for allowing Bug-type moves, but since we are trying to boost Sun teams we'd be wise to disallow Megahorn as even an unSTAB'd Megahorn would put nice holes into various Sun-dependent Grass-types.

Dragon- and Ice-type moves

I'm basically on the same wagon as mostly everyone else. Allow Ice Fang, but disallow all other Ice-type moves, and all Dragon-type moves. Dragon-type moves don't hit anything for x4 damage and the high-powered moves all carry negative side-effects. Dragon Tail, despite its utility in phazing, is outclassed (in my opinion) by Roar and Whirlwind because of its inability to hit past Substitutes. Ice-type moves allow Malaconda to hit Dragons and many of Sun's threats (Gliscor, Therian Landorus, etc.) for big super-effective damage.

Low Kick and other Fighting-type moves

Hit Heatran and other Steel-type pokemon hard. Rock is not much of a concern since Power Whip is already allowed. Ice can be taken care of by other Fire-type pokemon and should be one of the types whose usage we're trying to boost, but that's beside the point. Normal and Dark are really kind of inconsequential. Although they synergize well with our Dark-type coverage (and hitting a wide range of things isn't really our concern), disallow Low Kick and all other Fighting-type moves, simply for the plethora of Steel-types we can hurt. Brick Break is interesting for taking down screens, but I don't believe it has that much merit.

Ground-type coverage

Yeah we want to hit Electric-types, but a lot of them are immune to Ground-type attacks anyway due to balloon or Levitate and we end up just being able to hit Fire-types and Steel-types hard, which is something we don't want to do (although they, too, can use balloons to get around the Ground-type weakeness). Disallow.

Water-type coverage

Risks being used in rain and hits things we want to be threatened by. I think we can all agree on disallow.

Priority

I've covered Mach Punch, Vacuum Wave, Ice Shard, and Aqua Jet already (disallow). I think we can agree that Sucker Punch should be allowed as it gives us a reliable STAB and somewhat mitigates Malaconda's bad speed. I think Shadow Sneak should also be allowed. It's considerably weaker than Sucker Punch, but it doesn't require prediction and still allows us to hit Ghost- and Psychic-types super-effectively. Fake Out? Gives utility as a scout/sash-breaker, potentially making way for a Volcarona sweep, so I'd say allow.

Final Gambit

Despite it's sizable HP stat, Malaconda will be moving last more often than not, meaning it will almost never be hitting at full power. Besides, it has better things to be doing than dying. Disallow.

Super Fang

I'm very ehh about Super Fang, but I'm learning more towards disallow simply because I feel that it distracts from the concept we're tying to fulfill in order to become a wallbreaker.

Natural Gift

There's a reason we didn't want Malaconda to use Hidden Power, right? Disallow.
 
I was going to make another post yesterday, but it didn't happen so here we are. Now what we have left are:

U-turn
Other Bug-type moves
Ice Shard
Dragon-type and other Ice-type moves
Fire Fang
Final Gambit
Super Fang
ExtremeSpeed
Horn Leech

"Priority moves" as a category was kind of a murky one since most of them could be lumped in with their typings. Now that most of the coverage types have been categorized, only Ice Shard really needs to be separate from its coverage type.

I would have put U-turn into Allowed, but given ginganinja's post, maybe we need better agreement on how exactly we want to interact with our strongest checks and counters. There have been concerns in this thread and on IRC that being a liability against threats like Scizor, Heatran, Landorus and Dragon-types might actually kill its viability overall, never mind as a member of a sun team. Keep in mind that Malaconda is also rather slow, and U-turn, having little coverage benefit, is not as spammable as an attacking move as it is on, say, Scizor. So it seems to me that Malaconda's intended roles would benefit from having some kind of deterrent, that is, either coverage moves or U-turn (or Volt Switch or Baton Pass). Hell, maybe even Super Fang could fill that role.

All Fire-type moves other than Fire Fang have been disallowed, but I think that Fire Fang does provide kind of an intriguing situation. It's boosted in the sun, but only to the point of KOing one of its designated threats on the switch. Plus, being nerfed in rain plays against fears of Malaconda fitting better on, say, rain stall than on sun. I feel that the significance of the Fire Fang calcs is not so much in its potential to maim some designated threats on the switch-in, but in the fact that this potential is significantly increased in the sun. It's a potential incentive to use Malaconda in the sun. Even disregarding all that, I suspect that people might almost prefer U-turn to Fire Fang, especially on a sun team, which may benefit more from making Scizor its bitch than KOing it outright. These interactions may very well be worth exploring.

In all this, there is the concern that we may go too far by giving Malaconda one move or another. Given signs of increased interest in Malaconda by veteran players, I hope that we can have a better discussion on these matters. This is important because just claiming that some players think sun is / might become broken or whatever doesn't really say much when other players seem to think sun isn't broken at all and can't be made so without making something of Genesect calibre (and part of why I'm here is to ensure that won't happen...).
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
About Fire Fang. Why do we want this move? If the answer is to not be complete liabilities against Scizor, then U-turn/Volt Switch/Baton Pass/Super Fang already do that without messing with our list of counters that bad. Here are some calculations of Fire Fang in sun against some of the Pokemon that should counter us:

  • 0 Atk Jirachi Fire Fang vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Scizor in sun: 284-336 (82.79 - 97.95%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock. With 60 Atk EVs Malaconda always OHKOes after SR
  • 0 Atk Jirachi Fire Fang vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Breloom in sun: 170-200 (64.88 - 76.33%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock. Power Whip does 29.77 - 35.11% to the same Breloom, meaning that Power Whip + Fire Fang always 2HKOes after SR
  • 0 Atk Jirachi Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn in sun: 192-228 (54.54 - 64.77%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
  • 0 Atk Jirachi Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 176+ Def Forretress in sun: 172-204 (48.58 - 57.62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
  • 0 Atk Jirachi Fire Fang vs. 36 HP / 0 Def Magnezone in sun: 126-150 (43.44 - 51.72%) -- 10.55% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock. Solid 3HKO while SubCharge Magnezone can't do anything back while it should normally be able to set-up a sub and procceed to boost with Charge Beam, and thus beating the CAP one on one.
  • 0 Atk Jirachi Fire Fang vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Lucario in sun: 190-224 (67.37 - 79.43%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock.
And note that those calcs are with zero Atk EVs. If the CAP goes for max Atk and an Adamant nature then it can OHKO/2HKO a ton of its counters in sun, and many of them outside of sun too. So why the hell do we want a move that fucks up so many of the Pokemon that are supposed to counter us? Disallow Fire Fang.


About Ice Shard. After a bit more thinking i say we shouldn't give it to Malaconda. With it, Malaconda can shave of 40% - 50% of the life of Dragonite, Landorus, and Salamence, all Pokemon that are extremely dangerous to sun teams. But, this is not what we wanted. We wanted an answer to Lati@s and to Water-types, not an all around solution to sun's problems. The balance between weathers is very delicate and frail, and if we end up making Malaconda too good we could easily make sun overpowered. If not giving setup chances to Landorus is that important, we could always give to the CAP Super Fang or Encore, to give the options to players that have big troubles with Landorus to at least prevent it from setting up. Disallow Ice Shard.


About Ice Fang. Even though this move doesn't have priority, it still removes Breloom from our list of coutners, which is something i don't like and i feel is uneeded. Once again, i feel that there are better ways for the CAP to not be setup bait for physical dragon-types and Landorus, and those are U-turn, Baton Pass, Encore, etc, moves that don't mess with our list of coutners and don't make the CAP good at handlding a bunch of other threats as well. We should not give to the CAP too much general utility as its role is meant to be specialized. Ice Fang hits a ton of stuff and makes Malaconda much better overall, while doing nothing for the original purpose it was intented to have. Disallow Ice Fang.


About U-turn/Volt Switch. I don't like either of them for the reason me and ginganinja have brough up before: Heatran is not a counter anymore to the CAP. Both moves break Heatran's Balloon and bring Dugtrio in, which kills Heatran and opens the way for sun's sweepers. This is a huge deal as then it would possibly be too easy for sun to get past Heatran, which is supposed to be one of the best answers to sun teams, especially when holding Air Balloon. Disallow U-turn and Volt Switch.


About Baton Pass. I like Baton Pass as it solves most of the problems of the CAP but doesn't make it much stronger overall, nor it takes Heatran off of our counter list. With Baton Pass the CAP can still get the switch advantage that sun teams appreciate but without breaking any possible Balloon Heatran may have, preventing Dugtrio from insta-trapping it. Allow Baton Pass.

(sry that this is not an attacking move, but let's be honest we want U-turn for the switch initiative and not for the damage it provides, and Baton Pass does the same thing just without the damage, so i think that Baton Pass is very relevant if we are talking about U-turn)


About Super Fang. If Malaconda ends up not having other tools to not be complete liability against its counters then allow it. This means that Malaconda doesn't get any of Ice Fang, Ice Shard, U-turn, Volt Switch, and Baton Pass. If it does get any of those i feel that Super Fang is unneeded and unecessary good. Why give another option to the CAP to deal with its counters, and a good one at that, if it already has one? Only allow this move if all else fails.
 

ganj4lF

Nobody is safe from the power of science!
is a Team Rater Alumnus
Sorry for the brief post, but I have little to add at this point. I just want to say that, if the only concern in giving it U-Turn is that it breaks Heatran's Balloon, then I have no problem supporting Baton Pass. I just think one of the two is required, to avoid forfeiting momentum too hard. And, again, it's not Malaconda that would counter Heatran, it's Dugtrio. Heatran would remain a counter if I did not mistaken the definition of counter (in fact, it forces out Malaconda, so that should be enough).

Also, why are we discussing Fire Fang? It completely screws our threat list and is plain unnecessary if we give it Baton Pass / U-Turn. I didn't even mentioned that in my previous post, but my opinion is to disallow Fire Fang and any other Fire move.
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
I pretty much agree with ganj4lf, but I'll add that if U-turn and Baton Pass are both disallowed, then we do need to allow Fire Fang. The single thing I'm most worried about with this CAP is being a complete liability against Scizor, because I think that Scizor's ability to grab momentum gives rain too great an advantage over sun unless 'conda can somehow strike back. Due to the order of the CAP process, we won't know whether Baton Pass is allowed until after this discussion (though I suspect it will be), so I think it's best to allow U-turn and save the U-turn/BP debate for movepool submissions. Remember that "allowed" does not mean "required," and if U-turn is actually controversial, I'm sure some submitters will exclude it.

Allow U-turn
If U-turn is allowed, disallow Fire Fang
If U-turn is disallowed, allow Fire Fang
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top