CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment 2

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Birkal

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As a result of our last discussion thread (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-6-part-1-concept-assessment-1.3486471/), our Topic Leader decided that we will center our current project around the move Belly Drum. As we continue to work throughout the process, we will discuss other "underrated" moves that were discussed in Concept Assessment 1. However, we will use Belly Drum as our foundation to start building our Pokemon. Let's review the concept again:


Name: Show Me Your Moves!

General Description: A good user of moves with effects not frequently used in the OU metagame.

Justification: There are many moves in Pokémon with great effects, but they often end up unused. Moves such as Gravity, Snatch, and Safeguard have potential in OU, but they are neglected for several reasons: the moves are apparently overshadowed, have poor distribution, or are inefficient compared to another strategy. This CAP uses a combination of typing, ability, and stats to make these underused moves not only feasible, but also capable.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • What mechanics of Pokémon determine how viable moves are?--not only the Pokémon's typing, stats, and ability, but also its interaction with playstyles and momentum.
  • What new strategies might emerge by giving a new OU Pokémon underused moves?
  • What challenges do Pokémon that use lesser-used moves face compared to ones that use a more standard moveset?
  • If the Pokémon has options of staple OU moves (high-powered STABs, offensive stat-boosting moves, reliable recovery, Substitute), will those moves be useful to it, even if it's specialized toward a separate and distinct strategy?
  • Can underused moves increase other underused moves' viabilities?
  • Can one user of a strategy unrecognized in a metagame massively influence a pre-existing playstyle?
Guidelines:
1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if you're poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.

NOTE: Concept Assessment 1 featured quite a bit of polljumping. The moderation team let it slide due to the nature of the concept. But please note that now, we will be much more firm about adhering to the polljumping rules. We will not be discussing other underrated moves until much later in the process.

Keep an eye out for the words of capefeather, our Topic Leader for CAP6. He is the one providing us with overall direction and vision, so please try to gear your posts towards the topics and conversations he is bringing up.
 
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I was actually hoping to post the thread earlier, but I suppose this idle time gave people an opportunity to mull over what to do and how to make sense of what has happened so far. As the OP says, our focus is on the move Belly Drum.

It helps to examine existing Belly Drum users as a basis. Linoone and Azumarill are probably the most familiar examples. Linoone was somewhat viable in DPP UU, but it struggled against Steel-types and priority users, and it has carried these weaknesses to other metagames. Azumarill is a more interesting case because Belly Drum, as an egg move for Azumarill, locks it out of Aqua Jet. The combo would potentially make Azumarill very, very threatening.

Coverage and overall build come to mind for topics of discussion. A Belly Drum user that relies on priority STAB always has that priority to try to get past faster threats, but essentially having to use priority against faster threats means it has to deal with the power loss compared to a non-priority STAB, as well as potentially not being able to use coverage moves against faster threats. On the other hand, a Belly Drum user that relies more on Speed is freer to use its best STAB and any coverage moves it has, while being susceptible to even faster threats and priority.

The other thing we need to worry about is the competition. Several setup sweepers already exist in OU, and as a Belly Drum aficionado, CAP 6 will have to make its case against them. In order to distinguish itself from the pack, it's not enough just to use a different setup move. It has to do something that others can't, and we will likely need something other than the raw +6 power to be appealing without being broken.

Throughout the rest of the process, we need to keep in mind that Belly Drum is an extreme setup move, and neither its benefit nor its drawback should be trifled with. A small adjustment can be the difference between "terrible" and "amazing".



^Azumarill used Belly Drum
 
I think the best way to make an effective Belly Drum user is with an overall defensive build with average offensive stats. Defensive stats will allow the user to set up without being KO'd immediately. A BD user cannot afford to be a glass cannon unless it finds the absolute perfect opportunity to set up. With hazards and other top tier offensive threats, that opportunity does not come often.

A defensive pokemon with this build would also distinguish itself from other boosters. It would be able to come in and wall, but turn the tables as well, sacrificing precious HP to go on the offensive. This way it is not just a matter of "send out pokemon and mad dash to set up." That's something like Cloyster's role. CAP 6 could come in as a pivot at any point and fire off average strength or even perhaps clerical moves, but become potent offensively.

The problem here may be 4MSS but since this whole project is built around moves (and movesets perhaps) we can make sure it gets the moves it needs to be effective during the building stages.

EDIT @Base Speed below,

I believe the main reason that Linoone runs ES over, say, Return is that it trumps even priority attacks. Base 100 speed is very good in NU but there are enough Pokemon in the tier with either priority, scarf, or higher speed that Linoone would immediately fall to any of those threats. Plus, at +6, the power difference is virtually negligible in the tier. These should all be considered for this CAP in OU. If we give it speed, it will need LOTS of speed or else anything with a scarf will do away with it. But with the "Fast, Bulky, Powerful; Pick Two" model, I fear if we focus on speed, we'll have a Pokemon that can set up quickly and not even be bulky enough to take a single hit afterwards.

EDIT 2: When considering recovery, we can also consider Volcarona, who takes its 50% switching in and then generally needs a turn of setup at least. Volc has the option to roost off the damage, but how many of them actually run roost over more comprehensive team support? Just some thoughts, seeing what sticks...

Volcarona is very different from CAP 6 already in that Quiver Dance boosts speed and SpD, but still, it is viable (and actually very good) in OU. I believe its success lies in its bulk, good offensive typing, and ability to force switches. Obv, we are not trying to make a Volcarona clone, but these should be some things we consider to make Belly Drum viable.
 
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Please let us start off saying no Baton Pass.

Things I would like to see on a set-up sweeper would be more bulk, and team support options. I like the idea that you can have options to do before you set up a Belly Drum (other than a substitute). What kills set-up sweepers, is that if they get onto the field, and do not have the chance to actually set up, then they really are fodder to other Pokemon.
 

Base Speed

What a load of BS!
Ooooh look. Base Speed is going to make a post about base speed. Irony, funnies, etc, etc.

Seriously though. Speed or priority? Capefeather asks a tough question.

To decide, I think we need to look at Linoone. Linoone's 100 base speed isn't fast by OU standards, but in its own tier, NU, it's pretty good; only a handful of actual threatening pokemon outspeed it. Yet it still opts for Extremespeed. Interesting. Is it doing this because having priority is worth the loss in base power, or does it simply doesn't need the extra power to get any KOs? Just how much does it fear Choice Scarfers? I think it'll be worth finding out because it'll tell us a lot about whether speed or priority is a better option.

As for defensive capabilities, I think I'd like to see a bias towards typing rather than base stats to give it them. Some level of this is definitely needed to give set up opportunities, but if we give them from typing, we still need to find the right opportunities to pull off Belly Drum, whereas overall bulk will just lead to a broken pokemon. I think a big key here is going to be resistance to residual damage. While giving Movemon resistance to everything is impossible without Magic Guard (and I fear this'll be rather broken), we should be looking at at least trying to resist some hazards or weather. If we go down the priority route, typing will probably find itself torn between getting priority STABs and resisting opponents priority, and this goal of beating residual damage. If this does occur, I say focus on the former. The latter can be dealt with at the ability stage but there's no real way the former can be: abilities can make massive contributions to beating residual damage.

I think I'll edit this later to discuss how to give Movemon a unique selling point, because frankly, I'm a bit stumped and I think it's cheap and tacky to say "unique STABs". I look forward to what other people come up with for this though!
 
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I agree with JacobM. CAP6 should be fairly defensive, or at lest average defense with high HP. This way, it can use Belly Drum and still take a few hits, with maybe some healing moves to heal itself or at least Leftovers.

If we make a pokemon with very low defenses and very high attack, not only would it be OP, but after a BD it would be an easy kill for most pokemon. So, I believe the way to go for CAP6 is a defensive mon with high HP and maybe slightly above average attack.
 

nyttyn

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DPP Article of Belly Drum said:
In the card game Hearts, certain cards are worth points. If a player is holding a point card at the end of a round, he or she receive the appropriate number of points, one for each Heart, and 13 for the Queen of Spades. Unlike many other games, players try to maintain the lowest score possible, and therefore usually try to avoid holding point cards at the end of a round. However, if a certain player receives all thirteen Hearts and the Queen of Spades, that player gains zero points and all other players accept a 26-point acquisition each, giving the player who obtained all the point cards a substantial advantage. This is called "shooting the moon" and is a very dynamic strategy that has huge rewards, but also enormous risk; if the player attempting to "shoot the moon" is missing even one point card, the scores are calculated normally, and often the would-be shooter is burdened with a gigantic point gain if the strategy isn't executed perfectly.

The concept of "shooting the moon" is analogous to using the move Belly Drum in Pokémon. Belly Drum is a risky move that raises the user's Attack stage to the maximum level of +6 regardless of the original stage, but in return for such an explosive boost rids the user of 50% of its maximum HP, leaving it open to being easily knocked out in subsequent turns. If the strategy succeeds, the Belly Drummer is set to sweep, especially if it receives a Speed boost from a Salac Berry, but if the strategy is somehow foiled, the Belly Drummer's team is put at an immediate disadvantage, leaving it with one fewer member and often at little or no cost to the opposition.
Right now, we're basing CAP6 around the ultimate in high-risk, high-reward moves - Belly Drum. As the quote says, it is absolutely an all-in strat, able to end games in a single move - but at the same time, if you screw it up, you're at an extreme disadvantage. With that in mind, I think that CAP6 will greatly benefit if we partner it with Latios and Latias, for three key reasons: Healing Wish/Memento, Light Screen/Reflect and the offensive pressure they bring to the table.

I'll start with Healing Wish/Memento. Both both are horribly underseen, and both have extremely high risk/high reward effects. If we're already going with such a high-risk move, putting in extra risk to make the reward that much higher seems only logical - if it fails, either way you're at a huge advantage. Might as well make the payoff as huge and as likely as possible. In addition, the fact that the moves kill the users actually gives us an advantage - they allow CAP6 to, for almost free (only taking hazards damage, which is applied after Healing Wish) swap in, which is absolutely HUGE for a Belly Drummer.

Secondly, both Latios and Latias have access to the moves Light Screen and Reflect, which provide a defensive layer for CAP6. In conjuration with the ability to give CAP6 the closest thing to a free-switch that exists in pokemon, Dual (or even Mono) Screen(s) can really make things easier for CAP6, not to mention the general utility that Dual/Mono Screen(s) can bring to a team.

Finally, Latios and Latias both force switches just by existing. The offensive pressure that they put on teams is absolutely immense, and if CAP6 was built around capitalizing on those switches, its job would be much more achievable, as suddenly, it has those windows of opportunity it needs to use Belly Drum.

Obviously, there are a number of ways we could go about this project, but I think designing it with Latios and Latias as partners in mind would be a great first step towards making CAP6 a competitive and successful pokemon in the BW2 metagame. As a result, if we chose to go down this path, we would idealy make CAP6 able to take on common Lati@s switch ins such as Tyranitar and Scizor as well as possible.

Of course, we don't have to limit ourselves exclusively to the Lati twins. While they're the best examples in my mind, Dugtrio, Alakazam, all sorts of users of Memento/Healing Wish could potentially be great in conjunction with CAP6.
 
The overwhelming punishment for foolish use of Belly Drum (leaving the user with not only a loss of momentum, but a crippled pokemon, and the likely assurance that any hopes of a future BD sweep have been dashed), as well as the more narrow window for its use (it basically requires that all faster or priority-wielding pokes have been taken out (obviously depending partly on typing and movepool)) is what sets it apart from the current usable set-up sweepers. Honestly, I think we should be at least partly looking at ways to make BD a strategy that isn't literally all-or-nothing - basically all the current OU set-up attackers have things like bulk, hazard-resistances, recovery etc. that allow them to come in multiple times and have utility beyond straight sweeping, and it's almost a necessity in the extreme chaos of BW2. Abilities that aid recovery, moves that aid recovery, etc, just ways to offset the downsides and make it more generally usable.

Also, I think we should simply be greatly incentivising the use of Belly Drum - CAP6 can't be useless without it, otherwise it isn't posing any kind of threat or causing any switches on its own to begin with. Tons of pokemon can be made threatening with the kind of support nyttyn is talking about. Even, like, Linoone.
 

Korski

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I'd be pretty interested in hearing what sort of role people are expecting to see this CAP fulfill for a team. Capefeather brings up a really crucial point about differentiating this Poke from current physical stat-boosters like Terrakion, or things like Kyurem-B which require no convoluted setup like Belly Drum to cause massive damage to the opponent. Obviously, an end-game sweeper role is on the table, but that's exactly the role that becomes an issue when competing with the likes of SD Terrakion/Garchomp/Scizor/Breloom/Lucario, DD Gyarados/Dragonite/Haxorus, or Scarf Salamence/Kyurem-B. Trying to outperform physical threats of this caliber is a dangerous task for the CAP process to pursue, imo, so we would need to go into the creation process with a very focused idea of how to make our CAP a unique threat and thus desirable to select for a teamslot over these other Pokes.

On the flip side, I'd like to stress that, even in the lower tiers, BD is still not worth the risk and is relegated to the gimmick category in almost every case (Linoone down in NU and Makuhita/Poliwag/Zigzagoon in LC are the only Belly Drummers with on-site BD sets), so we have a long way to go before making a bona fide broken Belly Drum setup sweeper. To put it bluntly, simply building a CAP to utilize Belly Drum does not guarantee our CAP will be most successful with BD sets; the article nyttyn quoted is rife with examples of all the tiny ways we can go off-track along the way. Most of our current Belly Drummers require the security of Substitute and the one-off Salac Berry strategy to secure a sweep, leaving them with only 2 attack-coverage. Others require priority moves to function at all, which suffer from low BP and can be a real waste of a moveslot against slower opponents, especially if they must also use the SubSalac strategy. Here, typing is going to mean a great deal more than in past projects, as our selection of physical priority moves are limited not only to Dark/Fighting/Ghost/Ice/Normal/Steel/Water, but to the subset of those types where our Poke is neither too defensively vulnerable nor too offensively unstoppable.

The last thing I want to mention in this post is a spin-off of Doug's post from the last thread regarding how to facilitate a successful Belly Drum strategy (whichever strategy we settle on) through the use of peripheral, underused moves like Soak. I'm not crazy about Soak exactly, but a Poke that is able to support itself in its own boosting would be a huge boon to teambuilders, especially when this CAP's very presence is going to scream I'MMA BELLY DRUM at about 200 decibels and will likely require immense team support anyway (see nyttyn's post above for a neat idea on teammates). We can get this done with a typing heavy on resistances, immunity abilities, or with switch-forcing moves, but these ideas all clash with the problems that exist with current Belly Drum strategies, namely with offensive STAB reliance and desire for elegant 3-move coverage.

--------------------

Personally, I saw the Belly Drum decision as an exercise in brute force, where CAP utilizes the obscene Atk boost (when it can get it) to muscle through even slightly-weakened opponents that resist its attacks, or, at the very least, to Explode through commonly relied-upon walls like Heatran, Ferrothorn, or Skarmory, in exchange for being a real hassle to pull off successfully. The end goal, in my estimation, was to be a mid-game showstopper that instantly forced your opponent to respond on his/her back foot; this CAP would be beatable, but not before it put enough pressure on the opponent to make a choice between "bad" and "worse." In looking at it like this, I am much more interested in bulk-by-typing and less interested in highly metagame-relevant STABs or astronomical stats. I'm sure many people disagree with that approach, but I think if we want to really dig deep into Belly Drum's potential, this is probably the way to go as far as I can tell.
 

Bughouse

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To sum up my thoughts succinctly, I think our focus in this next stage should be focusing in on moves that either

1) complement Belly Drum on a set together. This could mean things like Explosion or Healing Wish.
or
2) utilize a totally different strategy that complement Belly Drum by succeeding against the sorts of things Belly Drum might fail against. This could be something entirely specialized and niche like Entrainment or Reflect Type.
 

phoopes

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I'm really excited for this CAP, because of the challenges needed to pull it off. Belly Drum is a very interesting move to use, and the difficulty we'll need to make a successful Belly Drummer in the OU metagame is high. Now I think it's agreed upon by a lot of people that Linoone is the most successful user of Belly Drum, but it still is nowhere near the higher tiers, dwelling in NU. Looking at Linoone, it has a Base Attack stat of 70, and a Base Speed stat of 100, as these are the stats that matter the most when creating a physical sweeper. To me, the attack stat is fine here, because Belly Drum makes Linoone's attack stupidly high. I also think that the Speed stat on Linoone is fine, Base 100 is great and outspeeds a lot of things. So why isn't Linoone a big threat in OU? I think the Normal typing and fairly bad 78/61/61 are to blame. Linoone can't take a hit, especially not when it's usually running at 75% maximum from Sitrus Berry.

To me, the base stats are going to be the most important thing in creating a successful Belly Drum Pokemon. To make this happen, I strongly think that CAP 6 needs bulk. Base Attack isn't as important, because even with a Neutral nature and Base 70 Attack Linoone reaches 956, far better than Swords Dancers. Bulk needs to be there, because we'll be placing a move on our new Pokemon that takes us down to 50% right away, 75% if we use the Sitrus Berry strategy like Linoone does. And that's before we take entry hazards into the equation. Speed is important too, though. In my mind, we could go two different routes, like capefeather said. We could go for slow speed and using priority moves, or fast speed and using more powerful attacks. For these reasons, I feel like out of the "Fast, Bulky, Powerful: Pick Two," our options for the most success are "Fast and Bulky (not Powerful)" or "Very Bulky (not Fast or Powerful)," since bulk is the most important thing to me. That said, I'd be afraid of CAP 6 turning into a support Pokemon if we go the "Very Bulky" route, that does without Belly Drum.

So, all in all, I'd feel best about the success of our Belly Drum Pokemon if it has good bulk and speed with middle of the road power, able to use its best STABs instead of having to rely on priority attacks to get the job done.
 

ginganinja

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Couple of things now that Belly Drum is picked...

Firstly:

Coverage and overall build come to mind for topics of discussion. A Belly Drum user that relies on priority STAB always has that priority to try to get past faster threats, but essentially having to use priority against faster threats means it has to deal with the power loss compared to a non-priority STAB, as well as potentially not being able to use coverage moves against faster threats. On the other hand, a Belly Drum user that relies more on Speed is freer to use its best STAB and any coverage moves it has, while being susceptible to even faster threats and priority.
If you are giving it speed, then its still going to be revenged by any revenge killer + priority, and thats a bad thing. Belly Drum is one of the most powerful (note: Not the most successful) set up moves in the game but it doesn't boost speed. Your best chances of getting a "Fast" CAP 6 Belly Drummer is running Belly Drum + Substitute + Salac Berry which could possibly give CAP 6 enough speed to outspeed scarfers, assuming it got 100+ base speed, at the cost of being exceptionally vulnerable to both defensive teams, and Sand teams. Option #2 is giving it unburden, however the +2 boost to its speed (combine it with a Gem or Sitrus Berry or whatever) just makes it ridiculously unrevengeable, pretty much requiring priority to bring it down or you lose. Obviously, if CAP 6 gets priority of its own, then that wouldn't work very well either.

For CAP 6 to be effective, we potentially need to bear the following points in mind.

#1: Belly Drummers are weak / vulnerable to Priority and Choice Scarfers. This is one of THE biggest weaknesses to Belly Drum because every single team has a choice scarfer, 90% of offensive teams run at least one Priority user (and often a choice scarfer), and prolly 80% of HO teams run 2 forms of priority (say ES Nite and BP Scizor). Bullet Punch, Mach Punch and Extreme Speed are the top 3 priority moves seen in OU, with Ice Shard, Quick Attack and Aqua Jet also seeing uncommon usage. CAP 6 needs to have a way to handle priority and Choice Scarfers, otherwise the gamble (or risk) to use Belly Drum just isn't worth it.

#2: Belly Drummers need the coverage to wallbreak. This (in part) was a weakness of linoone (iirc) because it wanted to hit Ghosts + Steels + Quagsire and potentially something else, and it just couldn't. It didn't have the coverage (or a strong enough coverage move) and thus, for CAP 6 to be worth using, it needs to break some of the common physical walls out there , otherwise its useless. Some of the common walls out there include stuff like Skarmory, Jellicent, Hippowdon, Landorus-T, and I guess maybe Heatran and Jirachi (more specially focused tho). Might be more, but those are the ones we want to be aware of later in the process.

#3: Its GOT to be usable. There might be a better way of saying the previous, but the point is that if CAP 6 is't doing anything a OU sweeper cannot do better, then it wouldn't be OU, period. This point comes from a recent conversation on irc about the merits of Regeneration + Belly Drum (srry ik im calling someone out ilu baby), and make it a direct wallbreaker, but in the process you have massive competition from the likes of Hydreigon and Kyurem-B, the standout stallbreakers / wallbreakers, that DON'T require to lose 50% of their health to be effective. I should point out that Regeneration + Belly Drum is a neat idea, but if its outclassed by other OU mons, technically we wouldn't be making this CAP for the OU metagame, because it just wouldn't be used.

#4: Its GOT to be balanced. This should go without saying, but if CAP 6 excells at points #1 and #2 then its going to be impossible to check or counter. Birkal knows im in favor of "picking" selected mons this CAP should be vulnerable towards, and I agree with him thats its potentially a very imperfect solution. The point is that CAP 6 does need to have vulnerabilities, otherwise it will easily be overbearing, while at the same time not making it overpowered. Its going to be such a thin line so imo we would need to be careful how to proceed. (Note that Darkslay?) I think had good ideas on irc at how to limit CAP 6 without making it timid as fuck so props.
 
I think of Marowak with this concept somehow. (Not Belly Drum Marowak, that's very risky and close to pointless.). It's a Pokémon with an average Attack stat made amazing by a Thick Club, which doesn't require any setup turns let alone HP loss. Despite this, Marowak is rarely seen. This is because of good-but-not-great defenses and horrible Speed. CAP 6 has its work cut out for it. If it can't outspeed the opponent, it not only needs to be able to take a hit, it needs to take it with at least 50% HP left or else risk a wasted turn and be promptly KO'd.

Everything that gets Belly Drum besides Linoone has Speed issues. Belly Drum itself is a bulk issue. Would this CAP be reliant on Belly Drum to function? Would it need to be reliant on Belly Drum to not to be insanely overpowered?
 
The reason RegeneratorDrum is so nifty is because it gives the move greater utility - CAP6 can still primarily be a sweeper, but can also act as a wallbreaker in a pinch, which it can't really do without some form of recovery. The aim is still to sweep, which differentiates it from Cube. Of course, there are multiple forms of recovery we can use to similar effect.

Obviously we do need specific counters no matter what, but the problem as I see it is that CAP6 effectively needs to be unstoppable to be usable, but stoppable to be balanced, at least if we're going for a straight sweeper. The line is so fine I'm not even sure it exists :/ I think this is one of the main reasons we should be thinking creatively about somewhat softening Belly Drum's drawbacks.
 
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Korski

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Hey guys, I just want to pop in again to say that this is NOT the thread for proposing or even discussing particular abilities, stats, or moves. That is what we refer to as polljumping. If you want to mention such things, please do so in the context of a larger argument that addresses the concept or using Belly Drum in the abstract. This is a tricky concept that does require a good amount of planning ahead, but at this stage of the process we have much bigger things to discuss (there will be time to discuss all of typing, abilities, stats, and moves in their respective threads). See Capefeather's original post for some discussion points that have been left unaddressed or underaddressed, and to posts like nyttyn's, phoopes's, and ginganinja's for an idea of the sorts of things we're looking for in this thread.
 

DetroitLolcat

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It's important to realize that it will most likely take some combination of Speed and priority to successfully execute Belly Drum because we will most likely end up making the most susceptible to revenge killing Physical sweeper in the entire OU tier. Why has Linoone fallen out of favor, even in the depths of NU? For starters, it is almost impossible to set up thanks to its 78/61/61 defenses. Without a Belly Drum under its fur, Linoone sits at a laughable 239 Attack that cannot be boosted by Life Orb or Choice Band. To set up, Linoone usually needs an opponent to have a Choice Scarf Tricked on them, a Substitute Baton Passed to it, or dual screens. Furthermore, Linoone is shut down by Steel-types, although those are rare in NU. Linoone's complete inability to set up Belly Drum without a substantial amount of support and the fact that a sweep is not guaranteed even after the setup prevent it from being an effective Belly Drum user.

Now, the biggest problem facing our potential Belly Drummer is not setting it up, but dealing with a Pokemon susceptible to revenge killing in a tier absolutely riddled with revenge killers. The top dog in OU is a revenge killer. Six of the top ten Pokemon in OU have primary roles as revenge killers (Scizor, Jirachi, Dragonite, Latios, Garchomp, and Breloom are the six Pokemon that I'm speaking of), although most of them also have other roles. No amount of Speed from the base Speed stat is going to help us against the numerous Choice Scarf users in the tier, and since we're probably not going to be boosting our Speed, we'll have to muscle through Pokemon faster than us with priority attacks.

The typing, stat biases, and abilities need to be geared towards facilitating the use of Belly Drum, while the movepool stage should be geared towards preserving a sweep after the initial setup. Without Regenerator (and potentially even with Regenerator), we've only got one shot at setting up. Failure to survive the turn spent Belly Drumming means going down 6-5 and losing your team's greatest offensive presence. Now's not the time to discuss the specifics, but the second-greatest obstacle to sweeping with CAP6 is actually getting the Belly Drum off. OU is chock-full of Choice Band and Specs users, and it's obvious that CAP6 is not going to be setting up on a Band or Specs user without an immunity. Not a resistance, an immunity. Unlike some Pokemon, we can't take 40% from a resisted Overheat or Draco Meteor and use the next turn to set up because we can be 2HKO'd by any attack that does an average of 25%. To highlight how little leeway we have in taking hits, any attack that normally 4HKOs us now 2HKOs us. Any attack that normally 2HKOs us is a guaranteed OHKO. Immunities are the only way to get around this; defensive stats aren't going to get the job done.

What is the main reason to use Belly Drum as opposed to any other setup move? The fact that youget your Attack multiplied by four in one turn. There is no other move in the game of Pokemon that can boost your Attack by move than half of what Belly Drum boosts it by. A Belly Drum-boosted, 40 BP priority attack is just as strong as a Swords Dance-boosted 80 BP regular STAB move. We don't want to make this Pokemon into a risky Swords Dance user, we want to use the fact that we can quadruple our Attack as opposed to double it. 40 BP priority attacks turn into viable sweeping options thanks to this move. Belly Drum was practically designed for a Pokemon with immunities and priority attacks.

Priority is more important than Speed unless we plan on using Speed Boost as an ability or give CAP6 a base Speed stat of 200. We're not beating revenge killers without priority, and frankly I wouldn't be opposed to turning this Pokemon into the ultimate priority sweeper.
 
My thoughts,

I feel like in order to make Belly Drum work, CAP 6 will absolutely need to force switches. No matter how good his typing is or how decent his bulk, at 50% HP taking a hit is something best avoided. That's not to say bulk and more importantly decent typing won't help, it certainly would. The problem is [potentially] taking a hit and losing 50% of your HP in one turn leaves you painfully weak to revenge killing. Of course as has been pointed out, players will expect a setup from CAP 6, making forcing Pokemon out difficult. If we make CAP 6 bulky/fast with little hope of an offensive presence without Belly Drum setup, what could the opponent fear that would cause a switch? If CAP 6 is powerful enough to force switches, why bother risking a Belly Drum setup at all?
 

Ignus

Copying deli meat to hard drive
As to making it Bulky vs. having speed: This is counterproductive.
Why?
Because belly-drum is inherently bad for a bulky pokemon. Losing half your health is a big deal no matter how tanky you are, but the fact that you do it as a mon Who has already invested in defenses suddenly makes your defenses worth less. A good comparison is softboiled on Blissey. Blissey is EXTREMELY tanky naturally. As in, doesn't believe special attacks even exist tanky. It's terrifying. Now lets say you can by some miracle 2HKO her. She uses softboiled and suddenly you have to deal with a Blissey with effectively 150% of her health. Now compare that to Espeon, who is not nearly the wall Blissey is. 150% of Espeon's health is worth a lot less than Blissey's.
What I'm trying to get at is that defenses are self mutiplicitave. The more you special defense you have, the more your health is worth, and vise versa. Moves like recover and softboiled multiply those defenses even further. Belly Drum does the exact opposite. Using Belly Drum makes your defenses worth less. It's what it's designed to do. In a way, it's a lot like a riskier version of Shell Smash. It makes your Spd and Def worth half as much, but doesn't give you the speed to cover up your newfound weakness. That's what makes speed so important for this concept.
So, for our suddenly huge weakness, how do we cover it?
Priority is the easiest option. Usually priority moves have the issue of a lack of base power, which makes the only users Mons that have Technician or those who have access to moves like extreme speed with both a high base power and priority. Attacks, like defenses, are also self multiplicative. So we MIGHT give it a priority move, but I wouldn't recommend it be our most used attack or even a STAB. It should be solely for stopping revenge killers or anything faster than it. The bad thing about belly drum is that you get literally one chance, if you're lucky, to use it. That sucks. So, we need to be fast. Priority is great, but I feel it wastes the offensive potential of Belly Drum. Belly Drum is mostly a late-game strategy, as far as I'm concerned. It shouldn't be used until the scary revenge killers are out of it's way. Otherwise, sacrificing 50% of your health will end up being a pointless exercise in futility.
Not only that, but we need support. I think, that in this department, Jirachi is worth at least mentioning. Access to Wish, paralysis, and wonderfully flexible defensive typing means we could have everything CAP needs. Residual damage would be soaked up by wish, paralysis could cripple those who CAP can't out-speed.
Well. My thoughts for now
 

ginganinja

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I think people want bulky because if you are bulky, you can take a hit and survive after the belly drum. Lets use your example. Its Blissey vs a Scarf Politoed locked ino Hydro Pump. Blissey tanks the hit and uses Belly Drum. Now lets look at Espeon. Espeon cannot tank the Hydro Pump AND use Belly Drum without dying, ergo, that is why people want bulk. (Note, not suggesting bulk is a good or bad idea, just explaining something). Having good bulk is also better if you want to use Dual Screen Support with your Belly Drummer (HINT: You should), thus, the more bulk you have, the better chance you have at a) setting up and b) surviving a priority attack that comes your way.
 
I am wondering whether or not CAP 6 could have multiple options, all centered on Belly Drum. A lot of Pokémon have only one viable move set. This Pokémon could obviously not be holding any Choice item if it wants to set up. I'm afraid if there is only one particular move set that could make Belly Drum work. Options are always nice on Pokémon for creativity and surprise factor to some extent. I hope we can give this Pokémon a lot to do while still using Belly Drum as the primary focus.
 

scorpdestroyer

it's a skorupi egg
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What I'm most concerned with is how to make Belly Drum look the most attractive option, with this mon still being viable in OU. Obviously if we're basing this CAP around Belly Drum, we'll need Belly Drum to be the best option, but the problem is: if we make it too speedy, why would I use Belly Drum over a standard all-out attacking set? If we make it too bulky, why should I use Belly Drum over a bulky offensive / wall set? And even if it were finely balanced out, I'd still need a reason to use it over other less risky but still moderately high reward Pokemon. We'll have to find a way to make sure this Pokemon's main set will be Belly Drum and not something else, that imo would be the hardest part of making this CAP a successful one
 
To me, the key to making Belly Drum work is thinking about what it can do that basic setup moves can't. Seems like an obvious point, but I feel like discussion has to hinge not only on how to beat its drawbacks, but how to play to its strengths.

Its strength is that it gives an astronomical attack boost, obviously. Essentially, this means we can afford to run smaller base numbers than typical OU hard hitters. This could be manifested in base attack stat or move BPs, but either way it gives us room to build in other directions. We could hike other stats - basically making it fast and bulky in terms of the build triangle - or predicate it on big damage with low BP moves. I think this is a great point:
What is the main reason to use Belly Drum as opposed to any other setup move? The fact that youget your Attack multiplied by four in one turn. There is no other move in the game of Pokemon that can boost your Attack by move than half of what Belly Drum boosts it by. A Belly Drum-boosted, 40 BP priority attack is just as strong as a Swords Dance-boosted 80 BP regular STAB move.
But DetroitLolcat was talking specifically about priority moves. I think we could reasonably stand to broaden the scope of that and dig up low BP moves with intriguing secondary effects. In my opinion this would be a great way to keep faithful to the concept by exploring the synergy between various seldom-seen moves.
So without being specific, I'd like to throw out the idea that CAP6 might take a more standard sweeper direction, with a fast, powerful build, but predicates itself on sweeping with lesser seen, low BP moves with powerful secondary effects. Since, unless of course we undertook the difficult task of negating this characteristic, Belly Drum tends to be a single-use strategy by nature, these moves could prove to be an effective way of prolonging the sweep.
 
Personally, priority is the main concern for me with this thing. Not actually when setting up - we can find some combination of maybe Substitute, defenses, or forcing switches to set up. That won't be much of an issue.

You guys likened the move to a more risky version of Shell Smash - this is a very accurate assessment. Look at Cloyster after a Shell Smash, though - it gets absolutely torn apart by priority afterwards. Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, Vacuum Wave, all of these just kill it. There aren't really any other Pokemon to compare to, unfortunately. But having priority after the fact will be important.

I recommend having a slow Pokemon to be able to set up, then having a move such as Extremespeed to keep the momentum.
 
As nice as bulk would be, in order to make CAP6 bulky enough to not die immediately , it would need an HP stat comparable to Blissey, and I don't think that's practical. I think it would make a lot more sense to instead give it typing and an ability where it can comfortably switch into a wider variety of attacks, and then get the turn to set up on the switch. It would also need to be immune or resistant to common priority moves so it doesn't get revenge-killed so easily.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
So, Belly Drum. Belly Drum lends itself to the sweeper/wallbreaker spectrum easily, so I'm going to quickly here examine the three things that make a good sweeper and how this applies to our project.

1) A good sweeper cannot be walled
2) A good sweeper cannot be revenge killed
3) A good sweeper sets up easily

When you look at OU sweepers, you see some combination of the following traits: Volcarona is only walled by three things (tran/dnite/toxic bliss), only revenged by two (terrak + keld in rain), and has fairly easy setup with the switches it forces—but it is neutered by stealth rock. I could run through more examples but I'm lazy. Some sweepers are weaker in one area, some in another, but all are mostly proficient in all three in order to remain usable.

By choosing to focus on Belly Drum, we've already shot point #3 in the balls. It's almost impossible to get the free turn needed for Belly Drum in OU; even our walls have 120 power stabs (toed, ferro, forry etc). That alone is gonna make it pretty hard to stay OU viable. So when I see people suggesting things like to make the Pokemon revenge killable by scarfers—i just don't even consider that as an option. Every team has a scarfer. It's already hard enough to set up, so a pokemon that also fails point #2 (we can't boost speed without an ability for it) is just lol. I'll cross the bridge when we come to it, as it will largely depend on what we decide here and in typing, but I'd rather not give it Speed Boost. And if we don't give it speed boost, that means we NEED priority.

Given what I said above, there are two possible routes I see for this project that interest me, while at least in theory qualifying as OU-viable sweepers. Both of these would involve being revenge killed and walled by virtually nothing, to make up for bd sucking to set up, but would be very different in execution.

First, we make a simple Ultimate Sweeper. For this we'd focus all of our efforts on making it so once you've used your Drum, you basically win, but don't help with finding the time to Drum. However, I fear that this would be a rather boring project, and that it would not use Belly Drum. That's why I prefer the other option:

We make a Pokemon that again can't be revenge killed or walled, but the only way it can break walls is with Explosion. No, this isn't just some gambit to make it so I get to do explosion anyway, it's the idea I stole from Korski. This is more of a wallbreaker than a pure sweeper, but it follows much of the same principle, and to balance the fact that it doesn't directly win games, we would focus on making it easier to set up. It would also have very interesting in-battle applications, being adaptable on the fly: busting holes in slower teams to end a stalemate vs sweeping more offensive teams with priority once it's BDed; sacrificing itself to take out a troublesome Skarmory, or waiting until Skarmory is gone so it can clean house? Priority and Explosion are both pretty lame without an Attack boost, so I feel we could definitely make it want to run Belly Drum, and I'm excited about the teambuilding and battling prospects of such a Pokemon.
 
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