CAP 35 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

[ausma]

CAP 35 So Far

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Please pay very close attention to Earthflax's posts during this thread and remain on topic. DO NOT begin by posting massive lists of abilities!

Some general rules for this discussion:

• Custom abilities are banned. No exceptions. Posts suggesting custom abilities will be deleted.
• There are ability banlists for the different stages of ability discussion. Posts suggesting banned abilities will be deleted.
• Flavor abilities do not have any place in this thread. Do not bring up flavor reasoning. Posts that rely on flavor reasoning will be deleted.

The following abilities are banned from this discussion:

Fully Banned Abilities group

Arena Trap
As One
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beads Of Ruin
Beast Boost *
Chilling Neigh
Commander
Dark Aura
Dauntless Shield
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise
Dragon's Maw
Fairy Aura
Flower Gift
Forecast
Full Metal Body
Grim Neigh
Gulp Missile
Hadron Engine
Hunger Switch
Ice Face
Illusion
Imposter
Intrepid Sword
Moody
Multitype
Neuroforce
Orichalcum Pulse
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor
Protosynthesis *
Quark Drive *
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield
Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Sword Of Ruin
Tablets Of Ruin
Teravolt
Transistor
Turboblaze
Unseen Fist
Vessel Of Ruin
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode
Zero To Hero

* These abilities will only be unbanned on a concept which is based around this ability - Such as an Ultra Beast or Paradox Pokemon

Soft Banned Abilities group

These abilities are banned by default and should not be discussed barring exceptional cases. If you believe one of these abilities should be considered, you can make a post trying to explain why an exception is warranted in this specific case and if both the TL and Ability Leader agree, it will be allowed. If the TLT disagrees with the unbanning proposal, they should be considered fully banned and should not be further discussed.

Bulletproof
Color Change*
Defeatist
Dry Skin
Earth Eater
Flash Fire
Fur Coat
Good As Gold
Gorilla Tactics
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Libero*
Levitate
Lightning Rod
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Magnet Pull
Mimicry*
Motor Drive
Parental Bond
Protean*
Pure Power
Purifying Salt
Regenerator
Sap Sipper
Slow Start
Stall
Storm Drain
Truant
Volt Absorb
Water Absorb
Water Bubble
Well Baked Body
Wind Rider

*These abilities can only be considered for an unban if the Ability stage is done before typing.

Secondary Ability ban group

Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Steam Engine
Supreme Overlord
Toxic Debris
Triage

Flavor ability only ban group

Ball Fetch
Battery
Costar
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power Spot
Power of Alchemy
Propeller Tail
Receiver
Run Away
Stalwart
Symbiosis
Telepathy

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Primary Ability banlist

Fully Banned Abilities group + Soft Banned Abilities group + flavor ability-only group

Secondary Ability banlist

Fully Banned Abilities group + Soft Banned Abilities group + secondary ability group + flavor ability-only group

Flavor Ability banlist

Primary ability group + secondary ability group

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With that, I will pass the baton to Earthflax. Let's make this stage a good one!

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Ability banlist PRC threads:

• US/UM: http://www.smogon.com/forums/posts/7391668
• SW/SH: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3659245/
• S/V: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3715273/

 

[earthflax]

Thanks ausma, and welcome everyone! It’s Earthflax here, ready to rumble. Now that we have our typing of Electric/Normal, it's time to sort out our ability. Before we move to specifics, I'm going to be asking a few questions to help to guide discussion and to narrow the scope of this stage. Without further ado, let's get right into the questions!

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?
A big perk of our typing is that it is a "holder of few" - namely, while it does not have many resistances, it also does not have many weaknesses. This means that we are going to be taking neutral hits from a very large share of the meta. Another important thing to consider for CAP35 is, naturally, its role as a wall; walls are meant to switch in to absorb hits, but they also typically provide important utility for a team. How do our typing and role change how we approach the ability stage?

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?
Previous CAPs such as Equilibra and Mollux, as well as Pokemon such as the Rotom forms, have patched up their typings defensively with immunity abilities that negate what would otherwise be super effective damage. Moreover, CAPs such as Plasmanta and Pokemon such as Gastrodon and Heatran carry immunities to neutralities that also help to augment their typing in very substantial ways. Considering our concept, and the fact that we have explicitly chosen CAP35 to have a typing contradiction, should immunity abilities be allowed for CAP35?

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?
This question is fairly self-explanatory. There is a very large range of abilities that could benefit CAP35, but some are very obviously far better than others. With our typing, role, and concept in mind, is there a specific power level we want to shoot for, and if so, what is it?

I'll open the floor for discussion on these questions for 48-72 hours. I'll remind you all once more that ability submissions are not open yet, but feel free to mention abilities as examples, etc. Cheers!

 

[viol and bass]

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?

We have limited weaknesses, but our resistances, while helpful, are not that potent in terms of walling whole mons (hence the contradictory nature of the typing). Overall I see two builds here:

• an ability-centric build: You use an extremely powerful top-tier ability, along with good but not great bulk, to turn matchups in your favor. These abilities might grant vital immunities, grant artificial bulk in various forms, drastically increase your resilience to status or hazards or chip damage, etc., while also in many cases granting additional offensive boons.
• a stats-centric build: "Holder of few" typings are taking neutral damage in many or most matchups. This can be a curse if you're frail, but a blessing if you're bulky. This build has very significant bulk, allowing neutral hits to essentially bounce off. This still likely requires a very solid ability, but you're leaning much more on your stats to turn matchups around.

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?

I think immunity abilities that don't turn a weakness into a resistance should be on the table. Turning a weakness into a resist can be seen as subverting the spirit of the concept or ignoring the bad parts of a typing. But otherwise immunity abilities are fine here. Ones that only block classes of moves but not whole types are probably okay.

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

It depends which build we prefer. We will need a powerful ability either way, but certain abilities are leagues ahead in terms of power budget. Both routes are valid but personally, I prefer a stats-centric build where we save a chunk of the power budget for stats. I think this leans into the strengths of a "holder of few" typing (its broad neutralities) a lot better than an ability-centric build.

 

[Ehmcee]

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?
A big perk of our typing is that it is a "holder of few" - namely, while it does not have many resistances, it also does not have many weaknesses. This means that we are going to be taking neutral hits from a very large share of the meta. Another important thing to consider for CAP35 is, naturally, its role as a wall; walls are meant to switch in to absorb hits, but they also typically provide important utility for a team. How do our typing and role change how we approach the ability stage?

I think a major aspect of our current concept is that we should stick with our "holder of few" concept. Particularly here, I do not believe removing one of our two weaknesses thanks to our ability is very pro-concept (Ground), additionally i very much believe we should be avoiding adding additional immunities to screw over our ratio of Weaknesses to Resistances/Immunities further. There is one exception to this however, in my opinion.

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?
Previous CAPs such as Equilibra and Mollux, as well as Pokemon such as the Rotom forms, have patched up their typings defensively with immunity abilities that negate what would otherwise be super effective damage. Moreover, CAPs such as Plasmanta and Pokemon such as Gastrodon and Heatran carry immunities to neutralities that also help to augment their typing in very substantial ways. Considering our concept, and the fact that we have explicitly chosen CAP35 to have a typing contradiction, should immunity abilities be allowed for CAP35?

I think adding additional immunities, as stated before is borderline anti-concept. Cap 35 already has 4 resistances/immunties compared to 2 weaknesses, and adding additional ones somewhat tips the scales on "holder of few". I however do think that Electric Immunity Abilities should be on the table, changing an resistance into an immunity is not as impactful, but certainly holds merit, particularly due to blocking Volt Switch.

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?
This question is fairly self-explanatory. There is a very large range of abilities that could benefit CAP35, but some are very obviously far better than others. With our typing, role, and concept in mind, is there a specific power level we want to shoot for, and if so, what is it?

I'm definitely in favour of a middle of the road ability, in terms of power. I think this concept will particularly need both strong coverage / moves in addition to good stats to succeed. Normal isn't a great stab in terms of power, while Electric has a very common immunity in the current meta. This Pokemon will have to differentiate itself with it's Bulk or the different moves it will get.

 

[chartung17]

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?
Previous CAPs such as Equilibra and Mollux, as well as Pokemon such as the Rotom forms, have patched up their typings defensively with immunity abilities that negate what would otherwise be super effective damage. Moreover, CAPs such as Plasmanta and Pokemon such as Gastrodon and Heatran carry immunities to neutralities that also help to augment their typing in very substantial ways. Considering our concept, and the fact that we have explicitly chosen CAP35 to have a typing contradiction, should immunity abilities be allowed for CAP35?

In my opinion, a levitating (or earth eater) Electric-type wall doesn't count as a typing contradiction; Electric is a decent defensive type if you remove its only weakness. I wouldn't be opposed to something like Bulletproof that gives us immunity to a couple of moves we would otherwise be weak to, but I think completely removing one of our two weaknesses is anti-concept.
I don't see a problem with an ability that grants an immunity to a type other than Ground (but at the moment I also don't see any reason why we would want such an ability).

 

[AzothBend]

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?

From the beginning of the concept, it was understood that CAP35 would need to compensate the contradiction present in other stages. With a typing contradiction, that means ability, stats, and move pool will need to pick up some slack. That said, with the competition for walls in the current meta, CAP35 will be better served by an ability that plays into a specific role rather than one that tries to expand its role too much.

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?

With Electric/Normal's defensive profile having two weaknesses, anything that removes one completely should be considered incredibly strong and likely anti-concept. As others have mentioned, targeted immunities to certain move types or others that do not remove weaknesses completely should be fair game.

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

Again referring to Electric/Normal's defensive profile and the fact it takes many neutral hits, CAP35 will benefit more from high stats and an average ability than lower stats and a great ability.

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?

As Electric/Normal, we match very well into the following (viable) CAP metagame (S through A- tier) pokemon:

• We perfectly *counter* non Focus Blast Gholdengo, Steel and Ghost does basically nothing to us and outside of Focus Blast we take very little damage from any potential option. We even dodge TWave + Hex.
• We also do an amazing job of countering non-CC Kitsunoh, though I'm not 100% familiar with the most meta sets at the moment.
• We can check Dragapult reasonably well, and as long as we have enough bulk to not get 2HKOd by Specs Draco Meteor, we actually counter Dragapult.
• We also check Raging Bolt reasonably well, again assuming we can tank specs Draco Meteor. Body Press is a non-issue.
• Krilowatt can't really hit us hard unless its under rain.
• There are a variety of pokemon we can hit super-effectively as well (Creceidon, Snaelstrom, Hamurott, Venomicon, Primarina, and Moltres) who (assuming our bulk is above average and we don't have absolutely awful offensive stats) we'll at least check.

We primarily check special attackers (again, unless we decide otherwise with stats and abilities), with the only two physicial and viable pokemon who we resist/hit SE being Hamurott and Kitsunoh. As such, if we intend on clarifying our role down into checking primarily specially oriented pokemon, we ought to focus our ability away from ideas like Static or other on-contact abilities, instead, focusing on abilities that help us tighten down out already favorable matchups.

Additionally, we need to consider whether or not we want CAP 35 to be primarily utility based (pivots, status moves, etc, think Alolomola/Creceidon/Snaelstrom) or more offensively oriented (e.g, Ting-Lu, Garganacl, Gliscor). Deciding this now helps us consider which abilities might be useful or off the table.

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?

I implicitly agree with AzothBends' point--we really really ought not to give this pokemon Levitate lol. That being said, I think other potential immunities might not be off the table, though we want to really stay careful to stay true to our contradiction. I do think we'd rather stick with non-immunity/resistance based abilities though I wouldn't see it as too problematic if that's what we end up landing on in the course of this discussion.

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

I think this depends whether or not we want to be primarily "utility wall" or "fat wall with big hits." The former I think should get a really strong ability but less overall stats, whereas the latter really needs quite a lot of stats and perhaps a less "numerically strong" ability.

 

[Amamama]

Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?

Our typing doesn't have any clear defensive matchup yet, with the exception of being good into Zapdos and the bad matchup into ground types.

For ability this kinda means we are still very much a blank slate with regards to our role.

The ghost immunity that normal grants is a starting point. At the moment the matchups, that result from this aren't clearly in 35s favor though. There are quite a few ifs, when you consider the abundance and variety of ghost types in CAP.

Additionally, because Normal/Electric is such a blank slate, it does not imply any more defined role than what we already knew, when we decided this is going to be a wall. This leads to the awkward position, that its ability and later moves must define the utility it can bring to and thus the reason to be put on a Team.

There might be one ability that brings this kit together early, but it's also very possible that we will have to look for synergies over several steps.

Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

For that reason I think it's hard to say how good this ability has to be.
Spending our power budget early means we probably can get a much more defined role early.
At the same time though, this is a typing that will rely on fairly bulky stats as it has so few resists and even if we find a good team support ability, we will likely have to dig into the treasure trove of generically good utility moves as well. So spending our budget early risks our ability to round out the set in later steps.
Even if I'm still undecided, I feel I'm leaning towards less powerful abilities atm, so we can invest in especially stats, which seems the most natural with this typing.

Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?

Given this typings status as holder of few I am against patching off the few weaknesses we have with immunities or expanding the set of resists with random immunities.
I also think that should include immunities that target cluster of moves, if if it's just to shore up one or two matchups. I'm especially wary of Bulletproof, given that this Mon is already immune to shadow ball and has no real interaction with Glowking, Cinderace or Darkrai. Giving out an ability to patch one matchup (Gholdengo) and hitting a stray (Venomicon) seems like a waste of ability imo.
The only type immunity i believe could be beneficial and doesn't feel random is a water immunity as Electric already targets Water offensively. It would be a very large cut in the power budget however so I am not a huge fan.

 

[Admiral_Stalfos19]

Skipping the first question cause I have nothing to add that's any different to what was said already. I'll do the other two, though

Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?

Not for typing, no. Screwing around with the type's established weaknesses would be anti-concept, and adding immunities or effective resistances through abilities (especially those that would add multiples such as Thick Fat) would change the answer of whether CAP35 is a Holder of Many or a Holder of Few to just straight up Yes... and in the bad way as well. I'm under the impression that that's not what we want.

Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

As Viol mentioned, there's 2 ways we can construct this mon:

A.) We spend most of our power budget right here, right now, and make its ability to wall things off centralize around... well, its ability, or
B.) We hold off on picking anything insane and just pick a mid-range ability that functions, with the intention of making this a statball.

In all honesty, I'd prefer the statball route. I feel as though we'd get a lot more milage out of that direction overall, as Holders of Few like Electric/Normal would definitely rely on their bulk more than anything else.

 

[Gekokeso]

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?
Lets take a look at the qualities that got Normal / Electric slated in the first place:

• Neutrality to common sources of chip damage: Normal / Electric: Normal / Electric may not resist any common froms of chip, but it also doesn't get hit effectively by them. An ability that is able mitigame the effects of hazards or Knock Off would come really handy for this pokémon, but isn't entirely necessary for 35 to succeed as a rock weak typing would have been.
• Status: Out of the 3 main status effects that matter, we are immune to Paralysis, meaning that having a decent speed tie could be synergystic with our design since we can catch a lot of thunder waves that are thrown around in the meta. That leaves Burn and Poison left. Burn is probably the status that is of most priority to us, since pokémon that our typing can come into can attempt to burn 35 in order to get progress versus it, via moves like Scald or Will-o-Wisp. Poison is less important than burn considering a lot of the typings we can come on don't pack poison moves, but it should still be considered due to common pokémon like Venomicon spreading poison through sludge bomb or via toxic spikes.
• Defensive Profile: Normal / Electric's only weaknesses are Ground and Fighting, so we would avoid staying in on the likes of Gliscor, Great Tusk and Equilibra, especially since we would need coverage to even threaten them as they switch in. Common fighting types such as Iron Valiant and Zamazenta can also threaten it out, but switching into it is hard as being an electric types means those mons are extremely afraid of getting paralysed in the process. From there on, there is very little that threatens out 35 outside of stuff with coverage to types it is weak to or Garganacl, and considering how many of those mons have said coverage as physical moves it makes sense to tool its toolset to take on more specially oriented threats. When it comes to its resistances and immunities there is a clear highlight and that is its immunity to ghost. Being immune to ghost type attacks means that this pokémon is able to come into the likes of Gholdengo, Kitsunoh and Dragapult to threaten them out with paras, especially the former two since its steel resistance comes in handy as well. Besides the ghost steel duo, there's isn't much the steel resistance provides, but admitedly resisting doom desire from Equilibra makes this mon significantly more useful for a team. The second most important resistance of this typing is the resistance to electric attacks, as well as being safe from a lot of the more common coverage that electric types tend to run such as ice and fire attacks, giving us switching opportunities to the likes of Raging Bolt, Zapdos and Krilowatt. The flying resistance is less useful, but its still appreciated for the likes of Venomicon.
• Offensive Profile: Normal / Electric's offensive profile is not actually as bad as one may think at first glance. While good normal moves are barren besides the overpowered boomburst, normal and electric's offensive profile together is actually not resisted by many mons. Its electric stab hits a significant amount of the meta for decent damage while threatning a paralysis, and normal stab can even somewhat compliment this by hitting grass and ground pokémon for neutral damage. Given how limited its weaknesses are, it allows it to get into the field safely and spam its electric attacks to spread paralysis with only ground types to stop it, so having coverage for them would make 35 a mon that is very hard to switch into.

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?
There''s definitely an argument to be said that using an immunity ability like Levitate would undermine the purpose as to why our typing was selected, however, I still believe an argument could be made for an immunity ability if it truly helps 35 perform its role better. The way I see it, an argument for an immunity ability can be made not with one that targets a weakness that our typing has such as Earth Eater does, but instead one that helps improve matchups we were either neutral to (eg, flash fire to catch wisp or enter safely into fire types) or had already a bit of advantage on (eg, Storm Drain to come in on water types).

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?
While I doubt that we can truly answer this question until we are given a real ability, I would definitely say that we should go into the ability stage with the aim of having a higher power budget on stats than ability. If we take a look at other holder of few users as the likes of Hippowdon, Blissey and Snorlax we can see that they all have tremendous amounts of natural bulk. This is because not having resistances to mitigate damage from makes you be forced to use nothing but stats to be able to take on powerful attackers. Since 35 will attempt to perform in a similar manner, we most likely have high stats, which should be put to consideration. If we go the strong ability decent stats route we might miss in some key targets that we could have caught by having higher stats by overcorrecting for certain matchups.

 

[thundergoos]

1. Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?
A big perk of our typing is that it is a "holder of few" - namely, while it does not have many resistances, it also does not have many weaknesses. This means that we are going to be taking neutral hits from a very large share of the meta. Another important thing to consider for CAP35 is, naturally, its role as a wall; walls are meant to switch in to absorb hits, but they also typically provide important utility for a team. How do our typing and role change how we approach the ability stage?

I think something we really should consider here is what threats we realistically want to tackle. Electric/Normal, as a typing, matches up decently well into Water types, Flying types, and Ghosts, but this is all very case by case and is subject to various techs (e.g. Gholdengo, who we otherwise counter, opting to run Focus Blast to nail us) or general statball offenses (e.g. strong Draco Meteors from Pult and Raging Bolt, whose respective Ghost and Electric STABs otherwise thud into us). Our typing is a little awkward for the purposes of a wall (which of course is the point); the name of the game for a wall is to sit on the field and absorb hits whilst also making meaningful progress, so I think an ability that allows for a greater sum of favorable opportunities for this would be optimal.

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?
Previous CAPs such as Equilibra and Mollux, as well as Pokemon such as the Rotom forms, have patched up their typings defensively with immunity abilities that negate what would otherwise be super effective damage. Moreover, CAPs such as Plasmanta and Pokemon such as Gastrodon and Heatran carry immunities to neutralities that also help to augment their typing in very substantial ways. Considering our concept, and the fact that we have explicitly chosen CAP35 to have a typing contradiction, should immunity abilities be allowed for CAP35?

To be blunt here, we’ve made our bed with our typing, and now we need to lie in it. Electric/Normal only has two weaknesses in Ground and Fighting, but they’re also common ones that have ubiquitous and high-powered moves that can nail us. For better or worse, this is very pro-concept, and I think if we try to compensate for these common weaknesses by opting for something like Levitate, we will have missed the point of our concept entirely. To this end, I think immunity abilities that directly affect our weaknesses are anti-concept and should be completely off the table.

I also am not really a fan of other immunity abilities that artificially add to our resistances (Flash Fire, Storm Drain, Sap Sipper, etc.). We chose our typing based on its status as a Holder of Few option; we only have two weaknesses but we also don’t really have much in the way of resistances either. If we mess with our typing’s defensive profile now, I personally view this as messing with our chosen concept too. I’ve seen some talk about Electric immunities like Volt Absorb or Motor Drive. While these are cool abilities that have some handy effects, we already resist Electric as it is. I don’t really see much of a point to doubling down on that, it feels to me like it would be a waste of our ability slot.

For the purposes of creating a genuine incentive to use CAP35, I would much prefer an ability that adds meaningful defensive utility and provides more of a concrete identity to our wall here.

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?
This question is fairly self-explanatory. There is a very large range of abilities that could benefit CAP35, but some are very obviously far better than others. With our typing, role, and concept in mind, is there a specific power level we want to shoot for, and if so, what is it?

I am inclined to agree with what others have said regarding whether an ability-heavy or stats-heavy process would suit our purposes more here with respect to power budget. Given our minimal relevant resistances and rather unfortunate weaknesses in Ground and Fighting, I think it will be important for us to allocate more of our power budget to stats (and probably moves for meaningful utility, as well) so that we can shore up our matchups with genuinely respectable bulk.

We could always take the low-hanging fruit and give ourselves a stupid powerful ability to carve out an immediate niche for our wall here, but I personally don’t think this is necessary. I think we will be able to get by just fine with a decently- but not overly-strong ability and powerful stats, as opposed to a dumb busted ability and decent bulk. There are lots of interesting abilities we could look into that aren’t at the upper-bounds of strength like Regenerator or Magic Guard but also don’t tweak our type interactions like immunity abilities. I think it would make for an engaging stage of our process if we focused on abilities that improve our defensive utility and what we can offer a team, rather than trying to augment and/or compensate for our typing through supplemental immunities or extremely high-powered effects.

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

(and probably moves for meaningful utility, as well)

My one concern with "mediocre ability + very good stats and movepool" is that it kind of treads on Blissey's design space IMO. Natural Cure on Blissey (as well as Serene Grace which rarely comes up) are not exactly "incredible" abilities (not that they are bad), and Blissey has an incredible movepool and amazing (special) bulk. Since we've already outlined ourselves as primarily checking special types we need something to delineate ourselves from Blissey, without either overshadowing Blissey or outright being worse.

Alternatively, we could throw caution to the wind and just create a "wall win-con" with extremely powerful defensive stats and a decent "win the stallfest" style of ability (e.g, Pressure, not that I'm suggesting that directly), but I worry we'll stop being a wall and start being some sort of weird bulky sweeper.

 

[thundergoos]

My one concern with "mediocre ability + very good stats and movepool" is that it kind of treads on Blissey's design space IMO. Natural Cure on Blissey (as well as Serene Grace which rarely comes up) are not exactly "incredible" abilities (not that they are bad), and Blissey has an incredible movepool and amazing (special) bulk. Since we've already outlined ourselves as primarily checking special types we need something to delineate ourselves from Blissey, without either overshadowing Blissey or outright being worse.

Alternatively, we could throw caution to the wind and just create a "wall win-con" with extremely powerful defensive stats and a decent "win the stallfest" style of ability (e.g, Pressure, not that I'm suggesting that directly), but I worry we'll stop being a wall and start being some sort of weird bulky sweeper.

This is a good point! I should clarify that I don’t think we need a crazy movepool to be able to do our job and do it well. The combination of a strong but not overpowered ability, high stats, and a contained but very effective movepool should be what we aim for, in my opinion. When I say we would benefit from moves that offer meaningful utility, I mean that we would benefit from having a couple strong utility moves that compliment our staying power as a wall and the threat we present to the mons we’re actively walling, but ideally just that: no more than a couple. But this all concerns something way down the line, so for the sake of this post staying relevant to this discussion, I’d like to say that “mediocre ability + very good stats and movepool” is not what I’m advocating for, but rather “effective but not overpowered ability + high stats.” Movepool considerations are a thing for later.

 

[Shock3600]

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

It depends which build we prefer. We will need a powerful ability either way, but certain abilities are leagues ahead in terms of power budget. Both routes are valid but personally, I prefer a stats-centric build where we save a chunk of the power budget for stats. I think this leans into the strengths of a "holder of few" typing (its broad neutralities) a lot better than an ability-centric build.

I agree with many others that the bulk of the power budget should be used for stats, not ability. Theres a few ways I see to use an ability without eating too much into stats budget. One is an ability that doesn't improve our defenses that much, but helps shore up the matchups we want to make sure we're secure in (such as Gholdengo or Dragapult). Second is a low-medium impact ability that adds a favorable matchup or two (without getting rid of/reversing our weakness i.e. levitate). The third, and in my opinion the best option, is something to help us make progress against ground types. If cap 35 is completely neutred by the many great ground types being able to switch freely in, then 35 just isn't going to be an effective wall. I think stats are going to be the hardest way to make up for this potential issue (without accidentally creating an offensive threat), with both movepool and ability having ample opportunity.

 

[Amamama]

My one concern with "mediocre ability + very good stats and movepool" is that it kind of treads on Blissey's design space IMO.

This should not be a concern for us. Not taking the simplest path and playing to the strengths of what we have, just bc we might infringe on an existing mons territory is going to result in a bad and non synergistic Mon.
Sometimes you gotta lie in the bed you made. If we wanted another mold we should have picked another typing.

That said, even if we take a mediocre/useful ability and beeeeeg stats Route, there are a million ways to distinguish 35 from Blissey still, starting with the fact that this typing actually has some resists and quite a nice additional STAB. And tbh even if we were to copy Blissey to a T, creating a SPD Wall with Natural cure, just with the simple addition of Knock Off or Static, wed already have a completely different Mon.

Overall it's just not realistic anymore to always avoid power creeping an existing and making an entirely unique Mon.

 

[Superperson00]

Are there any special considerations that need to be had in the context of our typing and role?

Looking at the discord, I’ve seen discussion regarding terrain setting abilities such as Grassy Terrain to help mitigate the issues to the Ground weakness, and others talking about ignoring the Fighting/Ground weakness altogether and pivoting to always-useful considerations like Regenerator. I feel as though neither of these are hitting the sweet spot for CAP 35’s intention to serve as an unorthodox typed wall; I perceive this to be a mon that can deny progress from opponents whose typing should normally be advantageous, similar to that of the success of Garganacl.

Negating a weakness outright is an anti-concept, but declining to find avenues to oppose our weaknesses fails to achieve the main purpose of this concept. Instead, I think we should be looking at creative alternatives that are able to overcome our most likely opponents to CAP 35.

Fluffy has been discussed on the discord and offers a capacity to outlive physical Fighting and Ground attackers through sheer bulk. I think this could be an interesting option to explore and merits further discussion.

Another option I’d like to bring up, while unconventional, is Sticky Hold in combination with the CAP 35 pre-evolution. Dipplin has found success as an Eviolite abuser despite its Grass/Dragon typing, and the 1.5x defences allow for greater versatility than Fluffy while exploring an alternative CAP interpretation that I don’t believe we’ve covered before. Additional bulk would allow CAP 35 to overwhelm opponents that would normally have the base power to brute force through, and the frailty of a pre-evolutionary form limits the capacity of offensive potential. Dual electric-typing is relevant here as it incentivizes CAP 35 to utilise paralysis rather than poison to create progress, which again helps keep Sticky Hold + Eviolite within the realm of viability.

However, this route creates further questions that I hope others may be able to give their input upon, namely:

If Sticky Hold is used in conjunction with a pre-evolutionary form, would we look to develop the NFE prior to the final evolution?

Additionally, how would the final evolution’s development be changed in response? Would it still be a wall, or have a different competitive purpose?

 

[Brambane]

Eviolite is off the table since we don't have a process that facilitates creating an evolution instead of a pre-evolution. This would likely involve either a policy review to instate such a process, and/or a brave TL allowing a concept for Eviolite user.

Additionally, we tend not to look at Eviolite or stuff like Ice Scales since we can usually just give a Pokemon stats that would hit the same benchmarks through raw stats, freeing up an item slot for a more impactful item.

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

Fluffy has been discussed on the discord and offers a capacity to outlive physical Fighting and Ground attackers through sheer bulk. I think this could be an interesting option to explore and merits further discussion.

I've been considering suggesting Fluffy and while there are some interesting interactions with us not resisting EQ and the gaining of an additional weakness (fire), I think all in all it's too similar to something like Fur Coat/Ice Scales where I'd rather just balance our defenses out in stats stage rather than here.

So far, personally, two* abilities come to mind that all play into the strength of our typing without being either too strong or too situational.

Starting with by and far the weakest/most situational option, I think Aroma Veil gives us a very useful immunity to a variety of very powerful offensive utility moves such as Taunt, Encore, and Heal Block from Psychic Noise. While not the most universally useful option, this would give us a surefire niche against options like Bulk Up/Taunt users, Glowking, and strengthen our matchup into Kitsunoh (which relies heavily on encore).

Another option I like is Electromorphosis. Being able to double our offensive prowess (or pivot chip with Volt Switch) on tanking hits (while still maintaining our ground type checks) is a very interesting design space, and unlike Bellibolt we can utilize the ground type bait to our advantage with various normal STABs/utility moves.

*edit: cutting suggestion for Scrappy as dex helpfully pointed out its' use case isn't really that useful

 

[dex]

There are a variety of strong normal/fighting type moves (fake out, seismic toss, encore, etc)

I don't see a wall using Fake Out ever. That move has exclusively been used by strong attackers who appreciate that extra next level of priority (Mega Medicham, Mega Lopunny, etc.). On Seismic Toss, if hitting Ghost-types is a super concern, we could just give it Night Shade, so I don't see how devoting an ability to that is a good play here. Encore hits Ghost-types without the need for Scrappy because that is how the move works.

Scrappy in general I think is a pretty poor avenue for ability because the Pokemon intrinsically threatens Ghost-types without the need for Scrappy via its assumed bulk and typing. Some have mentioned that Scrappy + Rapid Spin is valuable; I disagree. CAP 35 should be able to force out most Ghost-types already (this was part of the reason we chose a Normal typing in the first place!) so what really is the value of Scrappy spin?

 

[mark6870]

When it comes to mon like this, I second a lot of people when I say I want an ability that leaves power budget for Big Stats.

Abilities I haven't seen discussed too much yet are what I am calling Momentum Punishers. I'm talking Rough Skin, Electric Immunity, Electromorphosis (this one has been talked about), and so on. Walls often are momentum sinks and generally need some way to mitigate being pivoted on in some way to be successful with status, chip damage, hazards, pivoting of their own, et cetera.

Rough Skin punishes U-turn users as well as a lot of other physical attackers. There isn't really much else to say here, dissuading U-turn without having a Rocky Helmet is valuable.

I am not a fan of immunity abilities that remove a weakness, or change a neutral MU as they feel anti-concept to me. For lack of a better way to say it I don't really like the idea of going "well we have our bad typing now let's make it not bad by slapping some immunities onto it." Electric Immunity abilities, though, are different, as they are inherently lower value because CAP35 already resists electricity. Therefore, their value mainly comes from blocking Volt Switch and their own useful secondary effects, be it healing or a stat boost.

Electromorphosis boosts the power of our next STAB, which threatens the opponent with Big Damage, persuading them to switch in something that would resist it, which we could capitalize on with teammates that have a positive MU against them.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

To be blunt here, we’ve made our bed with our typing, and now we need to lie in it.

To be equally blunt, why? If your argument is purely "we've chosen a bad typing", then I think this argument should be reviewed instead against the concept - "This Pokémon succeeds in its role despite a severe contradiction in one of its key components (type, ability, stats, or moves) which would typically hold its role back.", with the chosen interpretation being Wall+Typing contradiction.

If the argument against Levitate or Earth Eater is that you're not allowed an effective ability purely because it removes one of the typing's weakness is followed through to the extreme, at what point does the ability not overcome the weakness of the typing? Does taking Well-baked, or Sap Sipper to turn a neutrality into an immunity come under "lying in our bed"? What about Multiscale? Or even Purifying Salt, when half the benefit is obviated by the fact we're part-normal anyway?

I'm not even particularly arguing for those as being slated - my worry with those it simply that becomes a one dimensional mon, who only ever runs that ability and nothing else - as much as Miasmaw would enjoy it, which is a capmon I'm quite fond of, but the fact that Immunity abilities exist for typings our own wall-contradictory typing by themselves should not remove them from consideration or discussion.

 

[dex]

Apologies for the near double post, but I also want to push back on the idea that now is not a good time to spend power budget.

There are 3 facets left for CAP 35 to accomplish its goal of being a good wall despite its typing. Those are Ability, Stats, and Movepool. I think you can realistically be pretty excellent in two of those (while still good in the third!!!) without overdoing it. People gave examples of Blissey and Hippowdon (who btw, has a very strong ability so idk what that's about) as examples of Pokemon that were walls in a similar mold with stats + movepools > ability. You can pull examples from anywhere for anything, though. Tangrowth has a great ability and stats to match (and a decent not amazing movepool) with relatively few resistances and weaknesses, and I think that that's a pretty viable path to go down. Arguably Clefable is an example of being resistant and weak to just a few things, and its two great sides are Ability and Movepool with only ok defensive stats.

Ability is a perfectly fine thing to spend power budget on, partially because it has been shown that that is a viable path to take but more because CAP 35 has an incredible amount of power budget left to spend. Many recent CAPs have, often without us realizing it, spent a lot of their power budget immediately during typing (Water/Fairy? Poison/Dragon? Fire/Fairy? Poison/Flying? Nuts standalone typings...). This CAP has done the opposite. Let's take a step back and realize that we have a lot more room to work with right now than in most other second stages of previous CAPs. Citing power budget as a reason to exclude "classically" powerful abilities from discussion shouldn't hold any water here.

Edit: I should clarify that I too am against typed immunity abilities. I just don’t want to exclude stuff like Regenerator and Magic Bounce from discussion (soft banned abilities that do not have typing interactions)

 

[mark6870]

To be equally blunt, why? If your argument is purely "we've chosen a bad typing", then I think this argument should be reviewed instead against the concept - "This Pokémon succeeds in its role despite a severe contradiction in one of its key components (type, ability, stats, or moves) which would typically hold its role back.", with the chosen interpretation being Wall+Typing contradiction.

If the argument against Levitate or Earth Eater is that you're not allowed an effective ability purely because it removes one of the typing's weakness is followed through to the extreme, at what point does the ability not overcome the weakness of the typing? Does taking Well-baked, or Sap Sipper to turn a neutrality into an immunity come under "lying in our bed"? What about Multiscale? Or even Purifying Salt, when half the benefit is obviated by the fact we're part-normal anyway?

I'm not even particularly arguing for those as being slated - my worry with those it simply that becomes a one dimensional mon, who only ever runs that ability and nothing else - as much as Miasmaw would enjoy it, which is a capmon I'm quite fond of, but the fact that Immunity abilities exist for typings our own wall-contradictory typing by themselves should not remove them from consideration or discussion.

Turning a neutrality into an immunity can be very powerful. I don't believe we should try to mess with the type chart any more than electric Immunity abilities, for the reasons I stated in my previous post (our typing is meant to be contradictory, and directly improving our type matchups through ability feels disingenuous to me.)

It would be wiser and, in my opinion, much more fun to spend our power budget all on stats and moves rather than Ability, as at that point in the process we'd likely have a better grasp on what we are trying to wall. For example, we knew what Cresciedon was going to check water and fire types such as Walking Wake straight out the Typing poll. We don't have as good of an idea because our typing doesn't resist much. (non focus blast gholdengo isn't happy I guess but that's about it)
Itd be better to spend our budget then as it could help us with either staying good at blanket checking or narrow down what we want to check.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

2. Immunity abilities are very strong and help to fix issues with typing. With this in mind, should immunity abilities be on the table for CAP35 considering our aim to make a wall with a typing contradiction?

I'm just going to argue right away that Levitate/Earth Eater should be taken completely off the table, as negating one of the major weaknesses of this typing is very obviously anti-concept, and there are other ways we could go about handling our Ground-weakness anyways. That being said, I'm perfectly fine with more situational immunity abilities that are more targeted and aim to help with matchups we already do at least decently into.

3. Considering our concept, there needs to be some level of attention paid to our power budget. Simply put, how good do we want our ability to be?

I think there's a fairly good argument that we could go with a strong ability during this stage. I agree strongly with dex's argument that we haven't really spent all that much of our power budget at this point (As our defensive typing is quite frankly, not very good), and that there's not really any reason that we should be holding back until the stat stage before we do so. At some point during this concept, we are going to have to ask ourselves what exactly we are going to be offering to a team over Blissey and Zapdos, the former of which is the strongest special wall in the game and the later has a great defensive typing and can easily punish physical attackers with Static, and I'm not convinced that we can do this through our stats alone unless we go to the extreme (Which is a route that I personally do not find very interesting).

 

[thundergoos]

To be equally blunt, why? If your argument is purely "we've chosen a bad typing", then I think this argument should be reviewed instead against the concept - "This Pokémon succeeds in its role despite a severe contradiction in one of its key components (type, ability, stats, or moves) which would typically hold its role back.", with the chosen interpretation being Wall+Typing contradiction.

Hey, thanks for your response! To answer your main question, I want to first say that my argument is not that we’ve chosen a bad typing. Electric/Normal is not a bad typing, it’s got some useful immunities and resistances that we can absolutely leverage with the right kit. However, for our purposes as a wall, it is an awkward typing, which is entirely the point of the concept. Our aim here is to take a typing that does not traditionally belong to a Pokémon who occupies the niche of a wall and examine how we can tailor a successful wall who functions effectively with that same typing.

From my understanding of the community support for Electric/Normal in the Typing discussion, the reason we ultimately opted for this typing was because, among the meaningful type interactions this typing has, CAP35 possesses a relative dearth of resistances and weaknesses alike. We chose this typing for a reason as per the concept laid out for us, and if we try to augment that defensive profile we've chosen in order to make it a little more palatable, then we’re effectively walking back our whole rationale for choosing this concept in the first place, much less our typing.

If the argument against Levitate or Earth Eater is that you're not allowed an effective ability purely because it removes one of the typing's weakness is followed through to the extreme, at what point does the ability not overcome the weakness of the typing?

This is a misconception of our aim here, I think. We’re not trying to overcome the weaknesses of our typing, because we don’t need to. It’s not an Achilles heel for us like Chromera’s typing inconsistency was. Electric/Normal, for how small its defensive profile is, still has genuinely good resistances on paper in Electric, Flying, Steel, and an immunity to Ghost. Are our weaknesses to Ground and Fighting unfortunate? Oh yes, definitely. But they’re not something we should be trying to alleviate by cancelling them out, that’s against the purpose of the concept. What we should be doing instead, at least in my opinion, is using this ability stage to select a decently- but not overly-powerful ability that a.) further defines our niche within the wall role with unique defensive utility and b.) ideally enhances our staying power when on the field.

Does taking Well-baked, or Sap Sipper to turn a neutrality into an immunity come under "lying in our bed"? What about Multiscale? Or even Purifying Salt, when half the benefit is obviated by the fact we're part-normal anyway?

Things like Multiscale and Purifying Salt are a separate conversation to this one about immunity abilities imo, as those abilities present entirely different effects from immunity abilities that are uniquely powerful for a wall.

Additionally, and this is just my own subjective opinion here, I personally just don’t find immunity abilities to be at all an interesting route for our process. Never mind that they go against the purposes of our concept, they just don’t really present much of a learning opportunity, in my eyes.

There are plenty of other, far more compelling abilities that we could opt for to really enhance the defensive utility of the wall we’re trying to create. Finally, there’s also the consideration of how much of our power budget an immunity ability really constitutes. Something like Levitate — which I personally think should be entirely off the table, since we absolutely should not be meddling with either of our two weaknesses — would be a pretty considerable usage of our power budget early on. Is that really something we’re willing to spend on, when augmenting our weaknesses already goes against our concept as it is?

Anyway, I hope I responded to your questions well enough. Thanks for reading! :)