CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

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Deck Knight

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Haven't had much time to formulate a comment. Just going to say a few words.

While I support what Magic Bounce is trying to do, it also does completely eliminate the threat of all defensive checks. Most of the Pokemon that can phaze though Magic Bounce are offensive, and among those, they won't choose Dragon Tail when CAP6 will be far too dangerous after a setup. It undoubtedly does give CAP6 maximum leeway to set up. The question is whether it is wise to eradicate the entirety of CAP6's defensive checks. I think that's an acceptable sacrifice.

While I'm leery of Electric immunity abilities, if I had to select one it would be Motor Drive because of the insurance it provides against Scarfers. I don't think Volt Absorb is entirely outclassed, after all if you're switching into Rocks you will be healed to 100% health if you've taken Rocks once or even twice. Lightningrod is novel but by definition this isn't going to be a mixed sweeper.

I like Sand Rush a lot more than Unburden for +2Spe abilities. I honestly don't see why it forces us into the 70 Spe territory. If anything if we go for such an ability, we compensate by making CAP6, less resistant to priority than we otherwise might, so instead of being fairly fast and resilient to most priority (say 25% or so from Scizor Bullet Punch), its more generally fragile but a complete monster once set up.

As far as the Scarf Magnezone issue (And Scarf Magneton for that matter), Mach Punch seems to me a non-ability way to resolve it later that keeps in line with the concept. I'd rather our ability focus on nullifying status.

I've also mulled over the idea of Guts, and I actually think it could work because a mediocre attack CAP6 is not going to run Flame Orb just so it can be barely competent at physical attacks and avoid paralysis, and be KO'd basically the turn after it Belly Drums by default. Guts will be purely about punishing opposing Burn / Paralysis, not making some kind of makeshift physical attacker.

Shed Skin is similar, and lets us bring back ShedRest, which could be absolutely mindblowing with a Belly Drummer, if Revenankh was any indication.

Incidentally I don't like Intimidate because there's nothing it does that can't be replicated or done better by stats. If the idea is it forces switches, isn't it better to take the reduced damage on all physical hits and not just the initial one? I don't think we should use our primary ability slot for Intimidate, the only thing it's going to do is alter defensive calculations when it comes to Stat Submissions time, and it addresses no unique problems to our Belly Drumming concept.

Right now I'm leaning to Magic Bounce / Quick Feet / Guts / Shed Skin / Motor Drive as abilities, in that order.
 
The poll jumping rule is not optional.
I just want to reiterate what I believe the best direction for the CAP is (although I know I am in the minority). CAP 6 should have 2 roles it can fulfill- Belly Drum offense, and semi-clerical. Not blissey level clerical, but able to run team support. This is the only way I can imagine CAP 6 getting a BD off- if the opponent is having to guess if CAP 6 will use a passive move like Heal Bell for instance, that they can capitalize on, or set up in which case they can bring out their revenger or scarfer. It is the only way to give CAP 6 the versatility it needs to not be predictable while also not overshadowing Belly Drum.

With that being said, I think that Natural Cure or Regenerator should be our primary ability, with Magic Bounce being an honorable mention.

EDIT: When I'm talking about clerical abilities, I mean something along the lines of the following. I'm risking poll jumping to try and make clear the role I believe this Pokemon has to take.

Imagine, in contrast to BD and 3 attacking moves, CAP 6 could run a set along the lines of Heal Bell/ Rest/ Belly Drum/ Acrobatics with Natural Cure. Incredible sweeper? Maybe not, but great utility and wall breaking power. There's tons of clerical moves like that we can explore that won't make CAP 6 a strictly defensive Pokemon but one with great versatility and a viable Belly Drum.
 
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Read the OP and linked posts. Don't tell mods how to do their job.
We all know, Shadow Tag is banned from discussion. Shadow Tag would be a great ability for a Baton Pass setup. Simply switching into CAP6 if something like Ferrothorn (without Leech Seed), Blissey (without Flamethrower) or Umbreon is on the field would give it great setup possibilities. But because this ability is banned there are two narrower options: Arena Trap and Magnet Pull

Arena Trap has the disadvantage that Flying/Levitate/Air Balloon Pokémon like Skarmory still are able to switch. Magnet Pull would be an option to trap Steel types only, like Choice Band Scizor or Metagross.
 
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Why is Shadow Tag banned from discussion? Shadow Tag would be a great ability for a Baton Pass setup. Simply switching into CAP6 if something like Ferrothorn (without Leech Seed), Blissey (without Flamethrower) or Umbreon is on the field would give it great setup possibilities. Maybe we could use Arena Trap as a lighter version instead, which causes Flying/Levitate/Air Balloon Pokémon like Skarmory to be able to switch. Or we could try Magnet Pull to trap Choice Band Scizor or Metagross. Please think about this and don't delete my post without any reason.
I like the narrower magnet pull or arena trap better for the very reason that they ARE more narrow, but, really, choosing the correct switch in means you have already sort of won since belly drum only takes 1 turn of boosting to pull off.

Something like suction cups could make us harder to phase out though.



Weak Armour could be fun to make us sweep harder once we belly drum
 

alexwolf

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@Pwnemon

Here are the answers to your questions (the first answer refers only to Regenerator and the second and third only to Magic Bounce):

1. Regenerator gives to the CAP more switch-in chances and therefore more chances to find the ideal setup turn. This is a simple concept really. If you manage to bring in the CAP two times via double switches, resisted attacks, or U-turn/Volt Switch and if you manage to bring it four times, in which case do you have more chances to face the right Pokemon in the right situation to setup? Obviously in the second. I don't know why so many people are downplaying or just ignoring this benefit of Regenerator which is very important. Being able to switch-in multiple times to find the right timing to setup is invaluable. Not to mention that with Regenerator there is the potential to outlast many of your checks and counters through the course of the battle as Tornadus-T has showed us even against sturdy Pokemon with recovery such as Jirachi. Also, Regenerator brings more setup chances to the CAP by making it easier for it to use Taunt and Substitute. You can say all you want about both of those moves not being viable, but if the CAP gets Flying + Fighting coverage + Regenerator then it will be perfectly able to run one of those moves in the last slot to ease setup against defensive teams. Both moves usually have the downside of costing life (Sub uses up 25% of your life and while using Taunt there is always the risk of taking an attack). We can't know yet how useful those two moves will be but they do have potential to be used to ease setup and this is what matters.

2. In order for the CAP to not derail from the concept there are two ways we can go about it. Make sure that the role of the CAP as a Magic Bouncer alone won't be good enough for it to be legitimately used (difficult as well know how good of an ability Magic Bounce is) or to make sure that the CAP's role as a dedicated Belly Drumer will be better than this of a dedicated Magic Bouncer. The second approach is the best one because as long as we focus on making Belly Drum working well in OU, there is very little chance that a dedicated Magic Bounce set will overshadow it, especially when it won't have the needed tools to do this. Yeah the CAP might be an ok Magic Bouncer even with no support moves solely because of its typing and the likely decent physical bulk that it will have but why does this stop us from making the Belly Drum set better? Pwnemon said this:
No matter how restrictive our defensive movepool, cap6 wouldn't willingly shave off 50% HP.
but the truth is that the CAP will be willing to do this if its role as a sweeper after using Belly Drum will be better than this of a supporter with Magic Bounce. Magic Bounce will simply be the tool that allows the CAP easier setup in order to sweep the opposing team. It will be the means not the goal. How do i know this? Well, we will be focusing on building the CAP around Belly Drum not around Magic Bounce, right? Which means that the role of the CAP as a Magic Bouncer will be mediocre at best while its role as a Belly Drum sweeper will be good. And good > mediocre. Unless you guys believe that we can't make a good OU sweeper with Belly Drum, in which case i am wondering why did you even support Belly Drum in the beginning...

3. Magic Bounce only removes Skarmory from our list of checks and counters so it really doesn't mess with it a lot.

Finally, regarding Sand Rush, i don't like it at all. It's a move that is centered around keeping sand up, which of 'course will not always be the case. We all decided that reliability is what the CAP needs at this stage and Sand Rush offers no reliability whatsoever. Furthermore, Sand Rush restricts the type of teams that we will be able to use the CAP on, something else that i also don't like. So, just no to Sand Rush.
 
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In reference to Guts and Quick Feet it is important to consider where you get burned in OU. Normally it is Scald, which is probably going to cripple us from damage alone. Lava Plume is even worse. Will-o-Wisp is almost always going to come from Rotom-W, who would happily just kill us with an attack. Considering that we can't be poisoned, those abilities are pretty much only going to effect paralysis. Priority would make Guts usable, and Quick Feet would have some utility, but I'm not so sure they are that much of a help, as Paralysis isn't that common.
 
I know I'e already talked about this, but I feel like the possibility of Suction Cups isn't getting enough attention. It would insure the CAP would not having to worry about wasting a Belly drum, which when wasted could devastate its chances of ever sweeping. Suction Cups does quite the opposite of distract from the concept of a Belly Drum user as it allows for Belly Drum to be a viable means of sweeping at all. Also, it keeps teams from just always carrying a fast phazer to counter this CAP. (This would remove the threat of whirlwind Skarmory).
 
2. In order for the CAP to not derail from the concept there are two ways we can go about it. Make sure that the role of the CAP as a Magic Bouncer alone won't be good enough for it to be legitimately used (difficult as well know how good of an ability Magic Bounce is) or to make sure that the CAP's role as a dedicated Belly Drumer will be better than this of a dedicated Magic Bouncer. The second approach is the best one because as long as we focus on making Belly Drum working well in OU, there is very little chance that a dedicated Magic Bounce set will overshadow it, especially when it won't have the needed tools to do this. Yeah the CAP might be an ok Magic Bouncer even with no support moves solely because of its typing and the likely decent physical bulk that it will have but why does this stop us from making the Belly Drum set better? Pwnemon said this:
No matter how restrictive our defensive movepool, cap6 wouldn't willingly shave off 50% HP.but the truth is that the CAP will be willing to do this if its role as a sweeper after using Belly Drum will be better than this of a supporter with Magic Bounce. Magic Bounce will simply be the tool that allows the CAP easier setup in order to sweep the opposing team. It will be the means not the goal. How do i know this? Well, we will be focusing on building the CAP around Belly Drum not around Magic Bounce, right? Which means that the role of the CAP as a Magic Bouncer will be mediocre at best while its role as a Belly Drum sweeper will be good. And good > mediocre. Unless you guys believe that we can't make a good OU sweeper with Belly Drum, in which case i am wondering why did you even support Belly Drum in the beginning...
The problem is that even a mediocre magic bouncer will be more usable than a good belly drummer (who has magic bounce). Unless you break it by giving it flat out great speed, recovery, priority, or whatever else would patch up everything, if it has magic bounce, by default it will be better at bouncing than it will be at drumming and sweeping, because belly drum is such an obscenely convoluted strategy to pull off.

Also, you said that we could give it magic bounce, but then build the mon's moves and stats around belly drum. However, you then later suggest ways to limit it, so that the mon can't exploit magic bounce. That is still building a pokemon around magic bounce, because you've knocked off so many options off the movepool and stat tables so that magic bounce won't get exploited, as opposed to the more varied approaches that may occur in trying to get belly drum to work, without having to worry abot building a broken magic bounce mon.

Throwing my support behind Intimidate. Also Regenerator, for the reasons alexwolf and Birkal have said. I screwed around with a team built entirely around different drummers to try and make it work, and the ability to heal after potential substitutes and mis-switches would have been a godsend when you finally get that perfect opportunity.
 
The problem is that even a mediocre magic bouncer will be more usable than a good belly drummer (who has magic bounce). Unless you break it by giving it flat out great speed, recovery, priority, or whatever else would patch up everything, if it has magic bounce, by default it will be better at bouncing than it will be at drumming and sweeping, because belly drum is such an obscenely convoluted strategy to pull off.

Also, you said that we could give it magic bounce, but then build the mon's moves and stats around belly drum. However, you then later suggest ways to limit it, so that the mon can't exploit magic bounce. That is still building a pokemon around magic bounce, because you've knocked off so many options off the movepool and stat tables so that magic bounce won't get exploited, as opposed to the more varied approaches that may occur in trying to get belly drum to work, without having to worry abot building a broken magic bounce mon.
I don't know if you can draw such a conclusion that mediocre Magic Bounce will be superior to Belly Drum Magic Bounce because it's not easy to conclude that. You can't really justify it due to something like Xatu and Espeon's increased usage because they are entirely different Pokemon that exhibit varying playstles. In Xatu's case, it's a full-out supporter Pokemon sporting Thunder Wave, U-turn, Roost, Wish, and other moves that make it a good Magic Bouncer. On the other hand, Espeon takes two different approaches: a supporting role and an offensive role. One would carry dual screens, cleric support, and Baton Pass or the like, and the other an all-out attacker due to its high base 130 Special Attack and base 110 Speed. With that said, now let us consider Magic Bounce on CAP 6.

I would like to firstly address your concern that, because we have to limit our options, we are essentially distracting our concept by focusing on how to "unbreak" Magic Bounce on this CAP. But really, this goes for almost any of these "help set up" abilities, most specifically Intimidate and Regenerator. We have to prevent supporting roles from appearing because those abilities, like Magic Bounce, are defensive abilities. Therefore, we are still limiting ourselves in that CAP 6 should not be able to possess a myriad of supporting options, if any, due to how it goes against our concept. This likely means no recovery, entry hazards, status moves, cleric moves, dual screens, etc from being in CAP 6's movepool regardless of which ability we select. Having said that, refrain from making this a primary concern because it applies to some other well-supported abilities as well.

Next, because CAP 6 is highly unlikely to receive any supporting moves, it cannot fulfill an effective supporting role; it will be inferior to its Belly Drum set. The reason is because there isn't anything CAP 6 can do other than Magic Bouncing and using some awful Toxic stall set that you and I both know is absolutely horrific in this metagame. Magic Bounce on its own can only get you so far to be honest. The awesome defensive typing further promotes a defensive set, but it will simply promote a defensive Belly Drummer if the user chooses to use it as such. This prevents it from being setup bait to a whole slew of Pokemon due to how horrible Steel/Flying coverage is, lack of powerful STAB attacks for each (I'll give you Brave Bird but between recoil and lack of reliable recovery, it's a pretty poor option), and the likely mediocre Attack stat which makes it very weak outside of Belly Drum. Espeon pulls off an offensive Magic Bouncer because it actually sports high offensive presence which CAP 6 is not capable of and a supporting Magic Bouncer due to its support movepool. As a defensive Steel/Flying type, Skarmory is a far better option over Magic Bounce CAP 6 for so many reasons and there is almost no reason to use CAP 6 purely defensively due to how outclassed it would be. Why? Skarmory will without a doubt have more physical bulk than CAP 6 (base 140 Defense is very high), has access to Stealth Rock and Spikes, is one of the most reliable phazors with Whirlwind, has reliable recovery in Roost, and has the ability to use Brave Bird with minimal drawbacks. What does CAP 6 do? Potentially bounce back entry hazards if you switch in on the right attack, and in common battle conditions, you are never going to 100% bounce back enemy hazards throughout the entire game; your opponent will eventually set them up. It does nothing else and the opponent will simply take complete advantage of you due to the fact you can't do anything harmful back. Even Magnezone, a Pokemon many are concerned with, destroys you without question. Skarmory can at least Whirlwind it on the switch or use Shed Shell (a defensive CAP 6 probably won't forgo Leftovers) because of Roost.

With these reasons, I strongly believe CAP 6's potential supporting set will be drastically inferior to both its Belly Drum set and Skarmory itself.

Now that that's out of the way, I would like to throw some support behind Intimidate as well. What I like about it is it's essentially a Magic Bounce for offensive teams in that it allows CAP 6 to set up against additional threats it wouldn't have been able to otherwise. The Outrage-locked Dragons won't nuke CAP 6's HP as hard, nor will it take severe damage from physically resisted hits. I'm also not concerned about it being a support Pokemon for the exact reasons listed above regarding Magic Bounce. It's probably one of the best abilities to help CAP 6 set up against offensively-oriented teams. In fact, now that I think about it, Magic Bounce and Intimidate would both be superb abilities for CAP 6. The former eases set up against defensive teams, while the latter eases setup against offensive teams. After all, what's the point of Belly Drum sweeping if you can't set it up anyway? It's up to the user to decide which path he wants to take. I like that.
 
Magic Bounce doesn't "just" remove Skar from our checklist, it's an awesome ability which defines the Pokemon. Xatu would be outright NU (or maybe RU) without it, and it's a good OU Pokemon, just because of it. Espeon wouldn't do a thing in OU without it (this, and utterly outclassed by Kazam and Gengar) without Magic Bounce.
I really don't like Magic Bounce because with its awesome typing, I'm more likely to simply bring it on Ferrothorn who can't scratch us and proceed to gain momentum not with Belly Drum, but either by crippling the switch-in (most scarfers don't like eating our STABs, even without boost : 252 Atk Skarmory Meteor Mash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 144-169 (47.84 - 56.14%) -- 83.2% chance to 2HKO and he won't OHKO CAP without T-bolt, or heck, there is even Thunder Wave) or grab momentum by double switching (or with Baton Pass or whatever).
I even fear we will have to take too drastic measures to counter balance Magic Bounce. Imagine an already decent Pokemon (say Poliwrath, heck, it could be fun) with Magic Bounce.

Suction Cups helps against Skarmory and Hippodown (and some Kyurem-B / Dragonite sets but it's not really a common sight) which is always nice, but we might need something stronger here.
 
I don't know if you can draw such a conclusion that mediocre Magic Bounce will be superior to Belly Drum Magic Bounce because it's not easy to conclude that. You can't really justify it due to something like Xatu and Espeon's increased usage because they are entirely different Pokemon that exhibit varying playstles. In Xatu's case, it's a full-out supporter Pokemon sporting Thunder Wave, U-turn, Roost, Wish, and other moves that make it a good Magic Bouncer. On the other hand, Espeon takes two different approaches: a supporting role and an offensive role. One would carry dual screens, cleric support, and Baton Pass or the like, and the other an all-out attacker due to its high base 130 Special Attack and base 110 Speed. With that said, now let us consider Magic Bounce on CAP 6.

I would like to firstly address your concern that, because we have to limit our options, we are essentially distracting our concept by focusing on how to "unbreak" Magic Bounce on this CAP. But really, this goes for almost any of these "help set up" abilities, most specifically Intimidate and Regenerator. We have to prevent supporting roles from appearing because those abilities, like Magic Bounce, are defensive abilities. Therefore, we are still limiting ourselves in that CAP 6 should not be able to possess a myriad of supporting options, if any, due to how it goes against our concept. This likely means no recovery, entry hazards, status moves, cleric moves, dual screens, etc from being in CAP 6's movepool regardless of which ability we select. Having said that, refrain from making this a primary concern because it applies to some other well-supported abilities as well.

Next, because CAP 6 is highly unlikely to receive any supporting moves, it cannot fulfill an effective supporting role; it will be inferior to its Belly Drum set. The reason is because there isn't anything CAP 6 can do other than Magic Bouncing and using some awful Toxic stall set that you and I both know is absolutely horrific in this metagame. Magic Bounce on its own can only get you so far to be honest. The awesome defensive typing further promotes a defensive set, but it will simply promote a defensive Belly Drummer if the user chooses to use it as such. This prevents it from being setup bait to a whole slew of Pokemon due to how horrible Steel/Flying coverage is, lack of powerful STAB attacks for each (I'll give you Brave Bird but between recoil and lack of reliable recovery, it's a pretty poor option), and the likely mediocre Attack stat which makes it very weak outside of Belly Drum. Espeon pulls off an offensive Magic Bouncer because it actually sports high offensive presence which CAP 6 is not capable of and a supporting Magic Bouncer due to its support movepool. As a defensive Steel/Flying type, Skarmory is a far better option over Magic Bounce CAP 6 for so many reasons and there is almost no reason to use CAP 6 purely defensively due to how outclassed it would be. Why? Skarmory will without a doubt have more physical bulk than CAP 6 (base 140 Defense is very high), has access to Stealth Rock and Spikes, is one of the most reliable phazors with Whirlwind, has reliable recovery in Roost, and has the ability to use Brave Bird with minimal drawbacks. What does CAP 6 do? Potentially bounce back entry hazards if you switch in on the right attack, and in common battle conditions, you are never going to 100% bounce back enemy hazards throughout the entire game; your opponent will eventually set them up. It does nothing else and the opponent will simply take complete advantage of you due to the fact you can't do anything harmful back. Even Magnezone, a Pokemon many are concerned with, destroys you without question. Skarmory can at least Whirlwind it on the switch or use Shed Shell (a defensive CAP 6 probably won't forgo Leftovers) because of Roost.

With these reasons, I strongly believe CAP 6's potential supporting set will be drastically inferior to both its Belly Drum set and Skarmory itself.

Now that that's out of the way, I would like to throw some support behind Intimidate as well. What I like about it is it's essentially a Magic Bounce for offensive teams in that it allows CAP 6 to set up against additional threats it wouldn't have been able to otherwise. The Outrage-locked Dragons won't nuke CAP 6's HP as hard, nor will it take severe damage from physically resisted hits. I'm also not concerned about it being a support Pokemon for the exact reasons listed above regarding Magic Bounce. It's probably one of the best abilities to help CAP 6 set up against offensively-oriented teams. In fact, now that I think about it, Magic Bounce and Intimidate would both be superb abilities for CAP 6. The former eases set up against defensive teams, while the latter eases setup against offensive teams. After all, what's the point of Belly Drum sweeping if you can't set it up anyway? It's up to the user to decide which path he wants to take. I like that.
I see what you say about belly drum being used as an accessory, so that it wouldn't be set up bait. It's a valid point, and so is that it won't replace skarmory. But for the most part, I believe that most people will not willingly use belly drum on this CAP if it get's magic bounce. This current CAP is turning out a lot like the way Aurumoth's concept coul'dve gone; it's all about them chances. And if I've got a CAP 6 waiting on my team, and my opponent is running a standard ferrothorn that might get in the way of some of my other guys, I'm sure as heck not going to cut down my magic bouncer's hp to half, at least not while it's still at any HP level that can cause trouble. T-Wave won't work? spikes won't work (not even mentioning the 4x resisitance to power whip, except i just mentioned it so whatever)? And that's just one pokemon, who is arguably the greatest wall in the current metagame. I'm not risking my CAP 6 until it's gone. Magic bounce makes the moves CAP 6 knows the sideshow; as long as it's keeping those ferrothorns and skarmories and whatever else at bay, I don't care if it can only toxic stall, I don't care if it knows splash. But I do care if it knows a move that cuts down on the amount of time I can exploit magic bounce, by lowering its own HP for a strategy notorious for not working. Giving it magic bounce will make many people shift away from using belly drum in exchange for keeping a magic bouncer around for a little longer.

Also, there's no comparing the amount of restrictions we'll have to put on CAP 6 if it gets magic bounce to the restrictions we'd put on it if it got intimidate or something else. Magic bounce is far too superior an ability for their power to be comparable.
 
Magic Bounce doesn't "just" remove Skar from our checklist, it's an awesome ability which defines the Pokemon. Xatu would be outright NU (or maybe RU) without it, and it's a good OU Pokemon, just because of it. Espeon wouldn't do a thing in OU without it (this, and utterly outclassed by Kazam and Gengar) without Magic Bounce.
I really don't like Magic Bounce because with its awesome typing, I'm more likely to simply bring it on Ferrothorn who can't scratch us and proceed to gain momentum not with Belly Drum, but either by crippling the switch-in (most scarfers don't like eating our STABs, even without boost : 252 Atk Skarmory Meteor Mash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 144-169 (47.84 - 56.14%) -- 83.2% chance to 2HKO and he won't OHKO CAP without T-bolt, or heck, there is even Thunder Wave) or grab momentum by double switching (or with Baton Pass or whatever).
I even fear we will have to take too drastic measures to counter balance Magic Bounce. Imagine an already decent Pokemon (say Poliwrath, heck, it could be fun) with Magic Bounce.

Suction Cups helps against Skarmory and Hippodown (and some Kyurem-B / Dragonite sets but it's not really a common sight) which is always nice, but we might need something stronger here.
I'm just saying that I don't understand why we are even considering magic bounce to counter phasing when it is SUCH a grossly powerful ability, and suction cups protects us just as well without fear of being overly project altering
 
I don't like Magic Bounce, but I like the intentions behind it. I'm telling you now these ideas are probably not going to be orderly and may jump around quite a bit.

So there's one very important point I'd like to point out when using Magic Bounce. When you use Magic Bounce, you aren't using Espeon thinking, "Hey, it can't get touched by support moves, it'll be a great sweeper!", you're thinking "gtfo hazards". That's the whole point behind using Magic Bounce, it's to get rid of hazards. What does getting rid of hazards do for CAP6? Not much, because we aren't taking a huge amount of damage from SR and are immune to both forms of spikes. The whole idea behind Magic Bounce is that we can't get touched by anything so we can't get crippled. That simply isn't what is going to happen, because Magic Bounce lets you get rid of hazards without wasting a turn clicking Rapid Spin or fear of Ghost types stopping it and actually gives you hazards on the other side. CAP6 doesn't care about hazards, so I don't think we need Magic Bounce. The only plus side to this I see is that we get free switch-ins on dedicated leads to set-up on.

The only compromise here is basically to pick our poison. We can pick Limber/Quick Feet to prevent the effects of Paralysis, Guts/Water Veil to prevent the effects of burn, or suction cups to prevent us from being phazed out. The only advantage I can think Magic Bounce has that no other ability can block is that it causes CAP6 to not be Taunted (though I'm probably missing something). I hate to use this as an argument, but if you want Magic Bounce because it prevents everything rather than one thing we do have a second possible ability (bleh semi-poll jump here) that will be voted on later that you can advertise for then. The fact of the matter is that we can't block everything without CAP6 not doing what it is being made for.

Adding on to those abilities that can also have their effects blocked by Magic Bounce, I'm surprised Clear Body and White Smoke have not been mentioned. Depending on whatever the stats turn out to be, an Intimidate user like Gyarados could mean the difference between a 1HKO and 2HKO. Should we somehow live a powerful attack, moves like Crunch and Focus Blast also have those low chances of lowering stats which would not be good.

Just as reference, Volcarona loses 50% of its HP from SR and is still a very dangerous threat. I think the way it functions should be used as a good example for how we also want this CAP to function, just on the physical side rather than the special side in Volcarona's case. Take that thought as you will.

Still supporting Regenerator and Quick Feet, like before. Srk does have a very good post on page 4 about Magic Guard which I am thinking about putting some support behind as of now.
 

alexwolf

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Magic Bounce doesn't "just" remove Skar from our checklist, it's an awesome ability which defines the Pokemon. Xatu would be outright NU (or maybe RU) without it, and it's a good OU Pokemon, just because of it. Espeon wouldn't do a thing in OU without it (this, and utterly outclassed by Kazam and Gengar) without Magic Bounce.
I really don't like Magic Bounce because with its awesome typing, I'm more likely to simply bring it on Ferrothorn who can't scratch us and proceed to gain momentum not with Belly Drum, but either by crippling the switch-in (most scarfers don't like eating our STABs, even without boost : 252 Atk Skarmory Meteor Mash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 144-169 (47.84 - 56.14%) -- 83.2% chance to 2HKO and he won't OHKO CAP without T-bolt, or heck, there is even Thunder Wave) or grab momentum by double switching (or with Baton Pass or whatever).
I even fear we will have to take too drastic measures to counter balance Magic Bounce. Imagine an already decent Pokemon (say Poliwrath, heck, it could be fun) with Magic Bounce.

Suction Cups helps against Skarmory and Hippodown (and some Kyurem-B / Dragonite sets but it's not really a common sight) which is always nice, but we might need something stronger here.
Xatu is not a good OU Pokemon it is a niche non-OU Pokemon that is just viable in OU. And explain me again how will the CAP do something useful without Belly Drum... The best switch-ins to non-Belly Drum CAP with Magic Bounce are Steel-types such as Magnezone, SubCM Jirachi, SpD Jirachi, SD Scizor, and Heatran. All those Pokemon can take advantage of the CAP without Belly Drum and even make it a liability by gaining free switch-ins against it and threatening the rest of the team. And those Pokemon are all extremely common and easy to fit on any type of team. And they can't be poisoned. So good luck not being absolutely useless aside from bouncing back hazards when those Pokemon are around.

Being able to bounce back hazards is nice and all guys, but the Pokemon must be able to do more than that in order to be a good OU Pokemon. Xatu barely does more and this is why it's not a good OU Pokemon, in fact it's not even an OU Pokemon. Espeon fits well on offensive teams thanks to the Dual Screens support it provides (essential for some HO teams) and how it's difficult to setup on it due to various factors (Yawn and good offensive presence, thanks to 130 SpA) and also has the niche of being the saving grace and cornerstone of Baton Pass teams in OU. Espeon defines Baton Pass teams in OU and this is a big reason as to why it comfortably sits in OU. But based on the role we want the CAP to take, moves such as dual screens, Baton Pass, U-turn, Volt Switch, and Roost, most likely won't be in our movepool. This means that the CAP will not be able to become a good Magic Bouncer, just a niche one that can bounce back hazards but is absolute setup bait for a ton of common OU Pokemon, similarly to Xatu. Why do people think that this role, which is not even enough to make a Pokemon OU (ask Xatu) would make the CAP a great Magic Bouncer is beyond me.

On the other hand, we can create a good Belly Drum sweeper for OU, or at least most of us think that we can, otherwise we wouldn't have picked Belly Drum as the focus of the concept in the first place. So, how can people be afraid that the CAP's Magic Bounce role will surpass its Belly Druming role is beyond me, at least without any reasonable explanation. Generic talk such as ''Magic Bounce is one of the best abilities'' and ''it made Xatu OU viable from the depths of NU'' tell us nothing that we don't know. Yeah we get it it's a strong ability but what next? Every good player knows that for a Magic Bouncer to be a good enough to make it in OU it must do more than bounce back hazards, it must be able to do damage back and not be a sitting duck. Otherwise it will just become a liability for the ton of Pokemon that take advantage of it, many of which are not easy to stop at all. And this is true for the CAP as well. As long as we focus on working with the focus on Belly Drum and not on Magic Bounce and by having Magic Bounce in the back of our heads whenever needed, we will be just fine.
 
What this discussion has told me about Magic Bounce is that it's really hard to tell what it will do in practice on a Pokemon that's attempting to be a Belly Drum sweeper. There are only two evolutionary families in the entire game with the ability, and as we all know, a sample of size 2 is a terrible one. Although it's a staple in Balanced Hackmons, that metagame is so fundamentally different from OU that it seems foolhardy to use it as an indicator of what an arbitrary Magic Bounce user would do in OU. That's actually what makes me really nervous about Magic Bounce. Even if we get this to work just fine, Magic Bounce is such a perfect combination of hype and unknowns (not to mention it could double as a source of speculation on Mega Absol) that I fear it would overshadow the concept and concept assessment just by being such a potentially interesting experiment in itself.

I'm not saying that I'm necessarily aiming a -1 at it, but imo it's a very important point to consider.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
OK, I think four days has been long enough for this thread to run its course: we're starting to see the same arguments again and again, and it's sadly all about one ability. I should have known Magic Bounce would dominate the discussion thread x_x. Still, I've given ample time for people to garner support for whatever abilities they want, and attempts to steer the discussion in a more meaningful direction have failed. So, I'm going to have to take a pretty drastic measure: I'm placing a gag order on discussion of Magic Bounce, and giving a 24 hour thread warning. If you don't know what a gag order is because apparently there are people who don't, it basically means don't talk about it at all.

I'm going to get the last word on magic bounce because i'm abilities leader so i can do that i see a somewhat frightening "damn the torpedos" attitude developing among its supporters about all the negative consequences of the ability that people have brought up.
alexwolf said:
Magic Bounce will simply be the tool that allows the CAP easier setup in order to sweep the opposing team. It will be the means not the goal. How do i know this? Well, we will be focusing on building the CAP around Belly Drum not around Magic Bounce, right? Which means that the role of the CAP as a Magic Bouncer will be mediocre at best while its role as a Belly Drum sweeper will be good. And good > mediocre.
CAP is not immune to failures; in fact, we fail quite often, and our greatest track record of failures is when using abilities with relatively unknown effects on the metagame. We didn't /intend/ for Krilowatt to be a Magic Guard sweeper, but our intent meant nothing: that ended up being his best role by accident, so that's how he played. We didn't /intend/ for aurumoth to be a broken pile of shit either but people theorymonned illusion horribly wrong, and it ended up being so. We can't just throw on rose-colored glasses and say "if we don't want magic bounce to break the CAP it won't" because we are anything but perfect.

alexwolf said:
We all decided that reliability is what the CAP needs at this stage and Sand Rush offers no reliability whatsoever.
This is anything but true. I explained that I want reliability for the CAP at this stage, and nobody else has posted either agreeing with or disagreeing with that assumption. Either I am a very convincing person or my message didn't get through at all: the whole point of my previous post was to get people talking about and challenging each other's underlying ideas for what we need out of an ability. I'm pretty disappointed that I've seen none of this. You will have a damn hard time convincing me that, given my assumptions about what constitutes a good ability, Intimidate is not the best choice, but if you think my premises for what makes a good ability are flawed, then challenge those—that's the important part! I know regenerator supporters and unburden supporters and intimidate supporters have very different ideas about what we need, and if you want to win other people to your ability, you need to convince them that what your ability brings to the table is the most important.

Lastly, I want to address srk1214's suggestion of Magic Guard, being as it was the only seriously suggested with a full argument behind it new ability, and I think it deserves some comments.

Magic Guard:
The problem with this ability is that it really encourages us to derail our project. It actually helps us set up belly drum against a surprisingly small number of things: Thunder Wave's speed reduction still ruins us, Burn's attack halving still ruins us, we can't run toxic orb to prevent other status, and switching into hazards once without taking damage is a really minimal bonus. However, Magic Guard does lend itself very well to a different strategy: a Pokemon who repeatedly switches in and out without taking hazards damage, and can snipe things with Life Orb boosted attacks without taking any passive damage for it. Magic Guard's attributes are best given to a pokemon that would be taking a lot of passive damage throughout the course of the battle (like, i hate to say it, krilowatt), and a late-game sweeper, basically just by its playstyle, already minimizes passive damage. As such, I fear that even with a belly-drum tailored movepool, Magic Guard is going to encourage the use of non-belly drum sets.

(i want to hear more on magic guard, suction cups, and water absorb to see if i should slate them, thanks bye)
 
I am sorry I have not been able to post before now, I know it’s not ideal to suggest a new Ability at this stage in the discussion but what about considering Technician?


Hold on, don’t dismiss it outright. Technician would help us with both the set-up and the sweeping portions of Belly Drumming, through the usefulness of some of the moves that it boosts. We all know and fear Scizor’s Technician Bullet Punch, but what if it was coming off +6 Attack? The most important aspect of Technician though, is the chance to better fulfill the concept by using more rarely seen moves. Belly Drum was the primary ‘rare’ move chosen, but there are lots of moves with great effects that are too low in base power to be effective in OU. Technician would enable us to consider our original concept more fully by boosting these moves.


1) What additional setup opportunities does this ability bring?

Technician helps us be more immediately threatening with probable STABs of Bullet Punch and 82.5 Base Power ‘un-boosted’ Acrobatics, and it also frees us up to use a different Flying STAB such as 90BP Pluck or even Sky Drop. Technician makes it more viable to run rarely seen coverage moves with interesting effects such as lowering Speed, Defence, flinching or causing paralysis. There are lots of useful Physical moves our CAP could use for coverage that cause these effects. Technician doesn't give us any particular extra set-up chances like ‘The Ability That Shall Not Be Named’, but it does make the CAP generally better at being threatening from the get go. Inflicting the added effects of various Technician boosted moves will also help with our set-up chances. I don’t want to assume we’ll allow any particular moves, but it’s fair to assume Movemon get some useful coverage. Just look through the list of Technician boosted Fighting moves for example: Force Palm, Low Sweep, Rolling Kick, Triple Kick; all of these become useful with Technician and are arguably better suited to aiding a Belly Drum sweep than Close Combat, Superpower, Hammer Arm or HJK.


2) With a reasonable movepool, how likely is this ability to distract from the concept? (The concept obviously being: Belly Drum user)

Well for a start, the concept is not just about Belly Drum, it’s Show Me Your Moves. Simply by making lesser used moves viable, we can better adhere to the concept than we do without Technician. We also increase the power of a Belly Drummer by boosting several STAB moves and having more freedom with coverage moves. In my opinion, that makes it easier for us to create a successful Belly Drummer and gives us way more freedom with stats and movepool. None of the other Abilities mentioned actually help us focus more on the concept than we are already.


3) What Pokemon does this remove from the threats list while at +6?

This is entirely up to us to decide, based on the stats and movepool discussions. For example if we gave it Technician Mach Punch, or Aqua Jet it would be much harder for Fighting or Water weak/neutral revenge killers to remain as checks. Any changes to the threat list are entirely within our power to control, which is as it should be.


TLDR – Technician will take an offensive route to making our Movemon a more comprehensive user of little-seen moves, while also increasing its power both before and after Belly Drum. Technician does all this while leaving the power firmly in our hands to control the extent of the boosts it gives via stats and movepool, and it’s a well known Ability which will make us much less likely to ‘fail’ (although as long as we learn something, this process won’t be a failure whatever the final result) and more likely to fulfill the concept.

Some short notes on other Abilities:

Suction Cups is simply not powerful enough IMO; it only helps again phazers, and makes us a better Baton Pass recipient. Movemon needs something stronger than that.

Water Absorb will definitely help with some set up opportunities, as well as healing prior damage on occasion, but is fairly situational, and many users of Water moves should be able to deal >35.5% damage to us with their Ice/Electric/Dragon coverage, or cripple us with Will-O-Wisp, so it will be pretty easy for the enemy to adapt to a Water-immune Movemon by either not using, or playing very carefully with choice or mono-attacking Water types. Again, I think we need a bigger boost from our Ability really.

Magic Guard just screams Life Orb attacks. I'd like to ensure that the one-shot aspect of Belly Drum is fully embraced, and to do that berries such as Salac and Sitrus, and Flying Gem should be strong item options. Life Orb attacking with great defensive typing leans strongly toward Movemon fulfilling a pivot role It's also significant that burn and paralysis are still crippling with Magic Guard.

Intimidate is the best defensive Ability I think. It would make a good Secondary Ability option with Technician as we'd then have the choice between a defensive or an offensive boost. Intimidate isn't overpowered as revenge killers aren't impacted by it, but could provide great utility with the right stats to make it easy to sponge a hit on the switch in, but tough to survive a revenge kill. That's a nice balance.
 
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nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
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Let me preface this post by saying that I agree with Pwnemon that we need reliability in an ability. In a game where there is already so much inherent unreliability (critical hits, misses, 10% freeze from ice beam, so on and so forth), reliability is absolutely king in any solid pokemon - if any crucial part of its build is unreliable, the pokemon itself will massively suffer, both in power and in usability. In addition, CAP6's ability pretty much has to be amazing, on account of how shitty Belly Drum is.

That in mind, there are two main routes that are currently being discussed for CAP6's ability. Either one that relies around the ability itself providing a set up oppertunity (Water Absorb, Intimidate, etc) or one that augments CAP6, thus freeing up space to allow set up via stats or movepool (Sand Rush, Unburden). I personally feel that all of the abilities that themselves provide the chance to set up are far too limited, and more importantly, put the ability for CAP6 to set up entirely in the hands of the opponent. And we already went over why this is a bad thing back during concept assessment.

That being said, I also dislike most augmenting abilities, as they either only work once (Unburden), or simply don't have a great enough effect (Regenerator, which just barely pays for 2/3rds the full cost of a single Drum. Not even a single drum, just 2/3rds of one.). Which brings me, once again, to Sand Rush.

Sand Rush is reliable

While Sand Rush is tied to a weather condition (Sand), said weather condition is generally seen as one of the easiest to keep up in OU. In addition, it is also the only weather that has more then one inducer, which means that CAP6 gets to chose the more reliable one - or hell, a team with CAP6 could even run both if you really wanted to. With that said, Sand being kept up is entirely within the user's control. It isn't always the best option, it isn't always even a realistic option, but it is always an option to swap in Tyranitar or Hippowdon, so long as they aren't KO'd, in order to bring Sand up. You don't have to bank on what your opponent does at all - in that regard, Sand Rush is completely reliable. It is also completely reliable due to the ease in which Sand is maintained, and reliable in that it is difficult to negate - the only thing that is commonly seen in OU that can stop it is Paralysis, and only a minority of pokemon are even capable of inflicting Paralysis.

Sand Rush is powerful

Sand Rush is a great ability. It completely doubles the speed of CAP6 while Sandstorm is up, no questions asked. It has done wonders for Stoutland, Sandslash, and Excadrill, proven time after time again to be an amazing ability that can completely make a Pokemon work. With that in mind, Sand Rush does NOT make CAP6 any easier to set up, aside from pressuring the opponent if it threatens a key mon at a low HP - it simply makes it so CAP6 will never have to worry about speed. Which brings me into my next point -

Sand Rush enables bulk

Sand Rush, by itself, is worth so much in the stats department that it frees us up to take the most reliable approach to setting up in existence - raw bulk via stats. At the cost of being reliant upon Sand, CAP6 will have the option of investing far more heavily into bulk, which will in turn afford it far more reliability then Motor Drive, Intimidate, or Water Absorb ever could. Stats, after-all, don't require your opponent to use a specific type of attack, and cannot be negated (though certainly abilities like Guts or Iron Fist will help your opponent overcome them) by any ability the opponent might possess - cold hard numbers always work for you, regardless of what the opponent does.

so yeah Sand Rush right now is looking like the best option to me.
 
Technician, Adaptability, Iron Fist, Unburden and other "win more" abilities don't seem inherently terrible (except unburden which is probably overpowered), they just don't seem like the best moves for the primary ability since they don't help he CAP set up, they just help it more once it DOES set up.

A personally like the idea of Weak Armor and Rattled since rattled, lets us switch in on something, if properly predicted, that we either rest, or DOUBLY resist, and then rewards us for doing so, making us harder to revenge kill. Weak armour takes away the prediction requirement, but provides some degree of punishment in the process.
 

ganj4lF

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After reading the thread, my opinion is that our best options are either an immunity-providing ability or Intimidate. Let me explain why I don't like other options posted briefly, then I'll comment on the two options I listed before.

Every ability that doesn't help us while setting up is, in my opinion, not worth of an ability slot. We're already building a mon around the most rewarding setup move in the game, so I really see no point in trying to enhance further our offensive capabilities after setting up. The only option that may be somewhat attractive is Mold Breaker, that would allow us to plow through Sturdy users, but I don't really think such a small advantage is enough when CAP6 already has huge problems in other departments (namely: finding an opportunity to set up).

Regenerator could arguably be grouped in the previous category, but I don't really think it would increase our chances of setting up by much. Yeah, we can attempt to do so multiple times, but the ability itself doesn't make it easier; and since we already argued that setting up BD is very hard, I'd rather find something that makes it a bit easier than trying to do something nigh-impossible multiple times (and probably with less HP each time...). Furthermore, Regenerator has a higher-than-average chance to derail the project, IMHO (not comparable to Magic Bounce's chance, but still): we already have a great defensive typing, and we will likely have some kind of bulk, so it's not that hard to imagine a sort of pivot out of CAP6 with Regenerator to keep up its health. This is not a huge concern, anyway, but since the returns on the ability aren't that great, I don't like it much.

I don't really have a precise idea on Sand Rush, it seems to me that relying on it is not really a great idea, especially when weather inducers are already victims of trapping and are very prone to be worn down themselves. Some good points have been made about it, I guess, but I'm still not that much convinced.

Now, on Intimidate: while I like the idea a lot, even after the drop most attacks are putting us at 15% or less HP after SR and Belly Drum (assuming decent 90/90 bulk and no investment): while it's true that Intimidate can avoid us being killed outright, we will be revenged by a random priority (or by a faster mon) in almost in every case regardless. Such a low amount of health left makes me wonder if setting up onto an offensive mon is a good idea or not.

However, even those immunity-providing abilities have problems: they're either great or do nothing at all. Still, they can provide us with a very solid chance to set up on offensive mon if we correctly predict (even better if they're choiced). Water immunity would be especially useful in that sense, since Water attacks are so common in this metagame, and choiced revenge killers like Keldeo and Politoed are likely to be seen in many teams. Electric immunity enables us to just ignore VoltTurn chains, and carries the valuable boon of making us immune to Thunder Wave. Those abilites, to me, are more narrow in scope that Intimidate (they let us set up in very specific circumstances), but do the job better, thus they're my favourite choice at the moment. I'm still looking for alternatives, since none of the listed ones is 100% satisfying, but this is my opinion at the moment.

P.S.: on Magic Guard, I don't really have strong opinions on the matter. It is a reasonable alternative, but provides less benefits than Intimidate or an immunity, in my opinion.
 
Why Sand Rush is bad:

1. Forced to use Sandstorm teams.

I personally don't want to consistently use CAP 6 on sand teams if I want to Belly Drum sweep with it. This is a huge restriction in just one ability. No more team versatility. I don't think it's arguably the easiest to keep up versus rain because neither Tyranitar nor Hippowdon typically enjoy switching into rain sweepers or Politoed itself.

2. Heavily reliant on sand to sweep.

Not only do you have to strain yourself in coming out on top in the weather game if you are against a different weather, you later have to worry about actually sweeping with CAP 6. This is too much struggle for my liking. I'd rather neglect CAP 6 altogether and use something else that isn't so reliant on weather to work.

3. Lose the weather, lose the sweeper.

If you do lose the weather, you essentially lose a sweeper because you lose a vital ability. Belly Drum becomes significantly harder to set up without sand up and thus, significantly easier for you to be revenge killed. This is especially true if you go with the "sacrifice Speed for more bulk" mentality.

4. Sand Rush is only an amazing ability on the right Pokemon.

Sand Rush works good on Pokemon such as Stoutland and Excadrill because they can switch in at any moment in time while sand is up and pose immediate pressure with their high, powerful offensive presence. CAP 6 lacks this because it needs to Belly Drum to be threatening and it can't switch in at any moment in time to sweep unless it wants to pick off something severely weakened I guess.

I have permission from/was asked by Pwnemon to respond to capefeather's concern regarding Magic Bounce. I remind you all to not respond to this section of my post and to leave the gag order intact.

What this discussion has told me about Magic Bounce is that it's really hard to tell what it will do in practice on a Pokemon that's attempting to be a Belly Drum sweeper. There are only two evolutionary families in the entire game with the ability, and as we all know, a sample of size 2 is a terrible one. Although it's a staple in Balanced Hackmons, that metagame is so fundamentally different from OU that it seems foolhardy to use it as an indicator of what an arbitrary Magic Bounce user would do in OU. That's actually what makes me really nervous about Magic Bounce. Even if we get this to work just fine, Magic Bounce is such a perfect combination of hype and unknowns (not to mention it could double as a source of speculation on Mega Absol) that I fear it would overshadow the concept and concept assessment just by being such a potentially interesting experiment in itself.
I agree with you about how difficult it is to tell what Magic Bounce would do in practice on a Pokemon built around Belly Drum. Like you said, we only have a sample size of two Pokemon, only one of them being OU, and they both are relatively similar (supportive Psychic-types due to their movepools and, in Espeon's case, high offensive presence). I also understand your concern about how "unknown" the effects Magic Bounce can have on a Pokemon simply because there are only two Pokemon that get it. We just don't know how overpowering its effects can have on a Pokemon, especially on a Pokemon designed to Belly Drum sweep and not become a supportive wall of sorts. However, I don't think this will make our concept completely irrelevant. There are methods to reduce the effectiveness of Magic Bounce itself and increase the potency of Belly Drum + Magic Bounce; after all, it's one of the best abilities for setup purposes. If anything, we are basically hitting two birds with one stone. On the one hand, we are analyzing whether Belly Drum can be a competitively viable setup move by giving it a powerful saving grace. On the other hand, we are also examining the effects Magic Bounce has on a "pure" setup sweeper. Together, we conclude that we are dealing with an extremely interesting experiment that will provide us with very beneficial information regarding how such Pokemon plays out. There's a lot to learn from if we take this approach and the CAP Project is all about treading unexplored territory.
 
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Bughouse

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I would like to remind everyone that CAP 6 has more than one ability. If you dislike Sand Rush for specific competitive reasons, that's fine, but

"It forces me to use a Sandstorm team"​

is not a reason to go against Sand Rush. Sand Rush functions excellently on a Sand team, obviously. But there's no reason to say the second ability would have to be bad. If the second ability is good too, CAP 6 will function just fine outside of a sand team. I mean really, we JUST finished a CAP with Harvest. Mollux had Dry Skin. Abilities tied to weather are not taboo.

If you want to argue against Sand Rush, do it on the basis of how it might restrict the process or distract from it, or something. Not some whiny complaint about having to use Tyranitar or Hippowdon.
 

jas61292

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I would like to remind everyone that CAP 6 has more than one ability. If you dislike Sand Rush for specific competitive reasons, that's fine, but

"It forces me to use a Sandstorm team"​

is not a reason to go against Sand Rush. Sand Rush functions excellently on a Sand team, obviously. But there's no reason to say the second ability would have to be bad. If the second ability is good too, CAP 6 will function just fine outside of a sand team. I mean really, we JUST finished a CAP with Harvest. Mollux had Dry Skin. Abilities tied to weather are not taboo.

If you want to argue against Sand Rush, do it on the basis of how it might restrict the process or distract from it, or something. Not some whiny complaint about having to use Tyranitar or Hippowdon.
I just want to say that I think this completely misses the point. Sand Rush is 100% reliant on Sand. It is useless without it. You can't make the comparison to two of our recent projects and try and dismiss that when neither ability in question is anywhere near as weather dependant. Sure, Dry Skin like rain. But it also makes you immune to water types, who Mollux was supposed to beat. And yes, Harvest works best in sun, but it is still an incredibly potent ability with a 50% activation rate outside of sun, and Malaconda's entire concept assessment was for it to help sun.

CAP 6 has no reason to want to be good in weather, unlike the two Pokemon brought up above, and Sand Rush inherently ties it to weather for no good reason, and furthermore makes our ability useless if the weather is not in our favor. People have been looking at two main functions for abilities: Help setting up and help sweeping once set up. Sand Rush does the latter in a very limited fashion, and does nothing for the former, which is the one I think is generally seen as more important. There really is simply very little that Sand Rush does that is actually beneficial when it is functioning, and makes us incredibly one dimensional in order to do so.
 

Theorymon

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While I prefer Motor Drive, I do think Water Absorb is worth making the slate. It may not partically help CAP 6 with sweeping beyond getting more HP for Belly Drum, but the Water immunity gives it new set up opportunities vs stuff like Politoed, which is pretty invaluable!

As for Magic Guard, something I do like about it is allowing us to use recoil moves for easier sweeping with Belly Drum. But like people have mentioned, Magic Guard makes Life Orb a non issue, so we could easily end up with another Krillowat situation. Also, Magic Guard doesn't help with the actual Belly Drum set up that much. I'm not totally against it getting into the slate though, because I think our experience with Krillowat could help us avoid the problems we had before. Still though, I don't think Magic Guard is that great of an option for this CAP either.
 
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