CAP 38 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

[Pipotchi]

These r good:
Strong Jaw, Mega Launcher
Not because they give you nuclear stab but because they give you access to pseudostab on a dark move which gives you perfect coverage outside of gambit. This threatens walls and it doesnt land in a situation like with ground/fire coverage where you can't handle one or two mons even if they are at 30% ( ). You can 2hko your counters after they are weakened. Its better than giving Knock off because it deals more damage and also knock off is arguably a detour from the concept, becoming a support mon with knock/toxic/recover/grass move.
I dont really know how to talk more about the benefits of these moves without polljumping because theyre so specific to the moves so I'll just do it and tlt can tell me off if I overstepped:
-Mega Launcher allowing us to be special is good cus we can still use LO in combination with Giga Drain, shrug off burns better, and generally punch through more stuff with Dark Pulse without being bothered by intimidates or helmets or burns, as well as iron defense on zama.
-Strong Jaw comes with the useful trait of being physical to hit Libra harder, as well as Poison Fang giving a questionable but interesting 50% toxic chance. You have a pretty cool 3 move coverage here if the grass move is really strong and justifies itself via high BP, and then 2 move coverage with poison fang/crunch and ANOTHER status move is a nice useful set.

Its really basic and might not give you that satisfying "Im squeezing 100% of the potential out of this ability" feeling since they dont have grass moves to boost but imo worth considering.


edit: I also am fine with basically everything except adaptability (big boost in the wrong area) and sheer force (this shit just does not compute with the cap process lol, i cant explain why without rambling forever)
lingering aroma feels more like a novelty route than being specific for the concept, and seed sower is considerably more ass than grassy surge while being the same effect so i dont really think it comes across as more subtle from a purely "vibes" perspective which feels like the main purpose for going this route. but neither of these feel straight up antagonistic to the concept so, shrug
Over time Ive just come around to the idea that this mon can see usage even if it gets walled by stuff, as long as it has a really good speed tier and enough stats to allow it to be a very useful and reliable answer to the few bothersome mons that this typing shines against. Its a unique type so it will have a unique purpose and grass/poison/ground is actually really annoying to tera out of. So I think this mon can see usage with a wide range of abilities, even if it wont be a lock for the A or A+ tier. Just have ground coverage.

 

[Zetalz]

I don't care for Grassy Surge/Seed Sower here. Grassy Surge by itself feels too defining to fit the vibe we wanted from our Mini-Etern's ability slot, as it steps away from being something purely for it's own benefit to being something to seek out in the builder for Gsurge. While Sower better fits it for selfish setteing, I feel like the benefit of Grassy Terrain is being overvalued. On paper it benefits us offensively (Grass damage) and defensively (passive healing), but in practice I don't see it making any kind of visible difference. Matchups aren't being swung heavily by the existence of terrain, and the EQ resist is kind of meh tbh. These things are nice, but not actually addressing dilemmas the mons faces that we could address in this stage. Just feels like pretty surface dressing.

Corrosion is a very defining ability that feels like it veers too far away from the general direction we were moving toward with a 3A set as the primary, and leans very heavily into a 2A Defensive set to the detriment of all else. Corrosion Toxic is a very impactful thing to introduce into the meta, even with the half dozen or so mons that would still be immune to it. It essentially says you're running 1 STAB + 1 coverage on every set, because skimping out on slotting Toxic is too huge a boon to ignore. However Toxic is not a guarantee, as it's slashed with Tspikes on the Universal Assumed Moves list, and can be rejected anyway for balance reasons. So if Corrosion Toxic is perhaps a bit much, surely regular poison inducing moves would be more ideal then? Ehhh, I remain unconvinced. PsnGas and PsnPowder are inaccurate (and powder cant hit grasses), leaving only really Toxic Thread as a reliable option. Idk man, it's decent enough for annoying pivots like Runt and Gking but again, I feel like targeting them with our coverage will lead to a more focused direction for general movesets.

Out of all the submitted options that are directly offensive in nature, Tinted Lens is the only one that's really spoken to me. As excellently described by viol and bass's post, broadening our neutral STAB matchups does not reduce the value of our chosen coverage option as much as would seem on paper, as hitting the obscenely fat mons we have running around in CAP for SE will still be a value in its own right, especially since our consistent STABs max out at 80/90 power on both sides. Add on to this that 38 will lack consistent setup options as outlined by our Concept Assessment, meaning it won't be veering into the direction of being a sweeping nightmare like the likes of Venom-E. It is a bit higher impact than some of the other offensive options, but the effect it will have on loosening (yet critically not removing!) 38's hard matchup spread feels very worthwhile to me.

Though it's not offensive in nature, which is the camp I'm seeking to push for with this stage, I can't help but find myself being enamored with Flower Veil. It really is such a concise little package of benefits that solidifies matchups we should have a positive matchup vs on paper by typing alone or by implied role, but in practice will be a lot more annoying. Paraspam users, Parting Shot users like Runt and Mala, ever present Moonblast & Shadow Ball users, there's a surprisingly dense amount of useful stat dropping effects that can be blocked in addition to the very useful paralysis immunity. Also makes physical slightly more appealing with the Burn immunity but I view that as minor at best. Ironically this high value of relevant effects is also what brings the ability down, as it's decently high impact, which we are trying to avoid. I've also seen comments that effectively locking your Tera type is a death sentence for this ability, which makes it a non-starter for some, that I do not fully agree with. There will absolutely be matchups where keeping Veil active will be less valuable than just going for the Tera, and honestly the dynamic of having to think on whether or not Tera is more or less beneficial for the matchup for longer than 3 seconds sounds kind of fun to me. It's not my first option, but I'd love to see it represented. Also support Limber & Natural Cure as status alternatives if Veil is still deemed too much for slate.

Don't really get the appeal of Sharpness/Mega Launcher/Strong Jaw aka 'the Dark-type abilities'? Sharpness I kind of get for opening up physical better by boosting a STAB and potential coverage, but SJaw and Launcher are just kind of confusing. Sure, doing more damage on poison fang is neat but the damage aspect of it is hardly why you'd use it, and having a strong crunch is cool neutral. But the direction we came up with was patching up a notable hole in STABs via coverage, going for even more neutral with Dark feels like it's just, kicking some dirt around the edge of the the hole to narrow it slighty as opposed to filling it in, if that makes any sense. I do see the value in having strong Dark coverage for a couple of problem mons, but it doesn't feel as appealing beyond that small handful.

All of Lingering Aroma/Wandering Spirit/Mummy feel like complete cope I will not lie. Really don't care having an ability that is functionally useless into anything not running contact, and even against contact users the ability overwriting/swapping rarely is going to make a true impact. I'd rather have something more proactive.

Mold Breaker is kind of neat if you want a low impact ability that still has relevant use cases. Ignoring Unaware users is of benefit for potential set-up sets that have yet to be discussed, hitting Levitaters with Ground coverage, bonking Garg with the toxic stick and being able to do funky stuff to Ghold are all neat little things to have as an option. Would support seeing this be included on the slate.

Don't really have any thoughts on anything else suggested so far, thus ends my feedback slop talk.

 

[Spammernoob]

When making a CAP, we have 3 broad aims, that sometimes align and sometimes come in conflict with each other. They are:
Concept Adherence
Viability
Cohesiveness
Of course, these are very broad, so I want to discuss each of these in the context of CAP38. First, however, is a recap of Concept Assessment to provide some context.

CAP38 So Far

Right now, we know CAP38 is a Grass / Poison type. This gives us access to some universally assumed moves, which are listed below. Additionally, we know from Concept Assessment that we will receive 50% recovery move (Recover until further notice). On the flipside, premium setup (Calm Mind, Nasty Plot, Swords Dance, Bulk Up) are guaranteed to be denied, as will pivoting; utility options will also be scant and under heavy scrutiny.

Grass

Giga Drain
Leaf Storm
Energy Ball
Seed Bomb
Bullet Seed

Poison

Acid Spray
Poison Jab
Gunk Shot
Sludge Bomb
Toxic OR Toxic Spikes

Gen 9 Universal Moves

Endure
Facade
Helping Hand
Protect
Rest
Sleep Talk
Substitute
Take Down
Tera Blast

As Steel and Poison resist both our STABs, we will receive a coverage move to hit (at least one of) these types super-effectively. However,

Finally, regarding stats, we expect high Speed (but slower than Zama / Pult) and well-rounded stats that are sensitive to investment (EVs, item, etc.).

We do not know whether we will be Physical or Special, but it is a good bet we will not be mixed (sorry Azoth).
We also do not know which coverage option we will receive.

Poison typing also gives us Toxic immunity. Thus, we do not need to address passive damage in this stage. This means we have quite some freedom in ability.

The sets we should aim to replicate (tiered by priority) are:
A: 3a Offensive, 2a + Util Defensive
B: Meteor Beam (3a Recover or 4a)
C: Cosmic Power (2.0 bonus)

Concept Adherence

I think there is quite some disagreement about what makes an ability pro-concept or anti-concept. Simply put, that is because there are a variety of ways to look at this question. I'll list out a rough categorization of how I've seen people interpret this point.
Replicating Pressure
One can look at Pressure in a vacuum and see that it is not a particularly impactful ability. I think this has led to the sentiment that CAP38 shouldn't be defined by its ability, or that it should be low impact / 'invisible' (though this can also land in the following category).

Replicating Pressure on Eternatus
Eternatus does get some value out of its ability in Ubers, especially on defensive (and Cosmic Power) sets, due to the prevalence of 8pp moves as primary STAB. Thus, some abilities aim to emulate the feeling of 'niche but contextually useful'. This includes Shield Dust's application against Moonblast and Salt Cure, or Limber's application against Cresceidon's Thunder Wave.
There is also discussion on whether we should give CAP38 a secondary ability, on the basis that Eternatus only has one ability.

Replicating Eternatus
We can also consider Eternatus as a whole, and how an ability can contribute to that whole. The clearest example is passive damage resistance; had our typing not given us some form of it, shoring that up in Ability would fall under this umbrella. I think justification for an ability like Tinted Lens primarily targets this aspect too; it aims to bring CAP38's Grass STAB in line with Eternatus' Dragon STAB in its broad neutral application.

Replicating Eternatus in Ubers
I think the most contentious abilities are the ones that are aiming for this goal, as it comes in stark conflict with the idea that Eternatus' ability is low-impact. The difference between CAP and Ubers metagames is very different, and some abilities aim to ease the translation of Eternatus from one metagame to another. Neutralizing Gas, for example, aims to reduce the impact of powerful abilities in CAP so offensive Etern can effectively do its job of efficiently trading down with other mons, and defensive Etern can effectively threaten Pokemon with Toxic. Corrosion has similar justification, primarily making Toxic much more reliable to mirror its efficacy in Ubers.

These views are in tension, and while I personally relate to the last line of thought the most, it's not really my place to tell people what they should or shouldn't care about.

Viability

The question of viability is worth discussing at this junction, given that our concept assessment has put strong limitations on tools that we can use to shore up viability in movepool.

Our main roadblocks to viability are as follows:

• Offensive Profile: The fact that our STABs share 2 resistances (Steel and Poison) means that STABs + 1 coverage will run into issues, where your best move to hit a Pokemon is with a neutral coverage move.
• Non-spammable STABs: Offensively, Grass and Poison have more resists than Dragon; it's much more difficult to spam them for broadly neutral damage compared to Dynamax Cannon.
• Toxic Efficacy: CAP metagame has no shortage of Pokemon that simply don't care about Toxic; such Pokemon are rarer in Ubers, and often understatted for the tier (Gliscor, Hatt).
• Archetype: Etern's fast tank archetype is very valuable in Ubers, due to the high concentration of offensive teams that Eternatus can trade efficiently into. When translated to a more balance-centric, bulky metagame like CAP, lack of breaking power becomes a much larger concern.
• Competition: CAP is less centralized than Ubers, so it is harder to justify a slot on teams.

The third point primarily relates to the defensive set, and while the first two are of utmost importance to offensive sets, are also relevant to the defensive set.

While I see avenues to address these during movepool, I think they are too fundamental to address during stats. Thus, I think trying to cover at least some of these during ability, and supplementing during movepool, is the best strategy.

Finally, I want to address a comment that is commonly made when viability concerns are brought up, especially egregious 0-100 MUs: "The mon can have checks." Eternatus doesn't have dead matchups based on typing; it is either walled via stats or setup, and can trade damage into basically every matchup. The fact that CAP38 doesn't snowball into victories with setup (low value ceiling) means it needs to justify itself with a high value floor, which means that being hard-walled should be maximally avoided (basically, I agree with pip). Obviously CAP38 will have bad matchups, just like Eternatus, but it should never be stonewalled and make 0 progress.

Cohesiveness

I do not think we have any issues with this. Not only is it relatively early in the process, but people are soft-polljumping to ensure cohesiveness anyways.

Finally, I will include some feedback on the current ability submissions through this framework. I'll categorize these based on what I think they're doing.

Offense-boosting

These abilities aim to bolster our offensive profile in some way. As noted, our offensive profile is worse than Eternatus' in multiple ways, meaning we have multiple avenues with respect to ability to bolster it.

Coverage Boost : Strong Jaw, Mega Launcher
These aim to boost a coverage move (Dark) to bolster offensive profile. I think this is a fine avenue to make hitting things with neutral coverage feel less bad. Dark hits some relevant Poison and Steel types super-effectively (Slowking-G + Ghosts), and is broadly neutral into the metagame, while having usable moves buffed by these abilities.

Blanket Boost : Sharpness, Sheer Force
If we're boosting every move, this just incurs a penalty in stats while reducing our flexibility. Sharpness forces us into Leaf Blade / Cross Poison, and Sheer Force forces us into Life Orb. I feel like Sheer Force especially is anti-concept, while Sharpness I don't think does anything (unless we accept stronger calcs than we would without Sharpness, which... I don't think will happen).

Adaptability
This is a boost to our STABs, which I don't think actually helps us here. It basically makes resisted STAB equivalent to neutral coverage. If this comes at the cost of stat nerfs, I think it just makes us straight-up worse; if we somehow base offensive stats entirely off coverage calcs, this will alleviate prediction, which is nice at least.

Tinted Lens
Very strong ability, that aims to shore up offensive profile by making STABs more reliable. Some consider this anti-concept, because it makes our STAB coverage only resisted by a few Pokemon (mainly Steel-types that quad resist Grass; Corviknight, Heatran, Scizor, Ramnarok, Revavroom, Skarmory...) The upside is that the STABs become much more spammable,

Target Expansion

Corrosion Basically expands the targets of Toxic, and allows Sludge Bomb to tag Poison-types with 12.5% per turn chip (surprisingly useful for chipping down Slowking-G, Mollux, and Pecharunt). There are concerns about disproportionately benefiting the defensive (2a + Toxic) set, but that set needs more help than 3a anyways so I don't see it as a concern. The fact that there are still a handful Toxic-immune Pokemon in the tier (Clefable, Krilowatt, Gholdengo, Garganacl, Gliscor, Snaelstrom, Hatterene) is probably OK.

Neutralizing Gas Very heavy-handed approach to guaranteeing viability, basically deleting ability-based answers to Toxic, shutting down Regenerator, and denying Booster-based revenge killers, among other things. I like the idea of CAP38 forcing the opponent to trade into it with stats instead of broken ability spam, and think the fact that CAP38's sets are straightforward, with minimal utility and limited setup, does contain the collateral to some degree but it is still a lot of potentially unintended interactions.

Defensive / Utility

Seed Sower Conditional power buff to Grass STAB + some passive healing (for both sides) when CAP38 gets hit. The fact that CAP38 is fast means it likely doesn't even get the power buff on the first turn, and the recovery on the opposing side can make it harder for CAP38 to break. On the other hand, Grassy Terrain is always appreciated for Life Orb attackers, so I can't hate too much. Cosmic Power sets also like this a lot.

Flower Veil Pure comfort, blanket status immunity + stat drop immunity conditional on being a Grass type (not Teraing). This solidifies our good matchups into Cresceidon, Clefable, etc. and gives us an insane anti-Webs MU, but realistically doesn't help any of the bad matchups.

Niche

These abilities aim to target a limited number of interactions, and are generally low-impact.

I genuinely do not think these are worth discussing at the moment. At the start of this stage, I told guingil that I'd be amenable to shifting the decision of Primary Ability to later in the process if he . The reason is because these abilities influence only a select few matchups, and it is more worthwhile to discuss after things like defining moves / stats have been decided.

Mold Breaker We don't really have any of the moves that would make Mold Breaker really valuable (strong setup, hazards, Knock Off) so this is just a niche option that benefits a few matchups (Cresc/Dnite Multiscale, Garg Purifying Salt?, Hatt Magic Bounce). Hitting Libra with Ground coverage is cope, since you make progress against it with Grass STAB anyways.

Limber This only affects a few matchups (primarily Cresceidon, sometimes Shox / Clefable / Slowking-G / Hatt).

Volt Absorb Apparently guingil unbanned it without my knowledge (even though I am supposed to sign off on it too). Well, this is mostly a Limber upgrade; with slightly worse MU into Malaconda and Shox (and Revenankh?). Electric immunity is always powerful in tandem with Tera (Raging Bolt walled for life), but otherwise the main draw of this is stopping Volt Switch, since CAP38 already resists Electric. Well, I don't want to think about the implications of Tera for this too hard.

Synchronize This Pokemon hates Paralysis more than basically every Twave user, and wants to spread Poison / Toxic anyways, so at best it's a minor upside (vs Clefable) for taking a terrible trade, and at worst it's just self sabotage.

Shed Skin, Marvel Scale Marginal anti-status abilities, I'm not really sure about these when most people want to shore up offenses (or at least proactivity).

Ripen, Harvest Berries are a fine avenue for limited setup, but we have more pressing issues to solve (3a and 2a + util sets).

Magician / Pickpocket Basically all-in Meteor Beam support before Meteor Beam is confirmed, probably just wait for secondary.

Lingering Aroma (Mummy / Wandering Spirit) I think this is too gimmicky, but it does something unique

Guard Dog This makes no sense. Cosmic Power would love this, but community seemed to hate Cosmic Power Etern...

Anyways, personal tierlist
Like :
Neutralizing Gas
Corrosion
Tinted Lens

Indifferent
Seed Sower
Flower Veil
Strong Jaw, Mega Launcher
Whatever niche ability guingil decides is best

Dislike
Adaptability
Sheer Force, Sharpness

Finally, I'll note that I will push for LO to 3HKO Slowking-G (at least offset Regenerator). If we end up needing to do this through stats, it will not be pretty.

Horrific Calc

145 SpA: 252 SpA Life Orb Eternatus Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 114-135 (28.9 - 34.2%) -- 2.4% chance to 3HKO

 

[CapitanPabloskii]

I've been waiting to not poll jump for a good bit now and I want to suggest  Levitate as our ability. The reasoning for this is that being Spikes immune gives huge item variety bc we don't need to hold Heavy-Duty boots to not take 25% from spikes. No single Levitate user has ever wanted Heavy-Duty Boots and not needing them gives us the ability to run Life Orb more effectively, Eject Pack Leaf Storm, Leftovers, without the worry of Spikes. Think of Mega Lopunny vs Mega Latios. Mega Lopunny is considered hazard weak. It gets chipped down by them quite quickly, though Mega Latios is used on bootsspam teams and is considered ok againsy hazards. This is the whole reason that superman teams exist in gen 3, spikes are that powerful and impactful. Furthermore, it gives us a positive matchup against Ground types like Equilibra, who would usually hit us neutrally for good damage, but we now 1v1 them due to them not having ways to hit us. I like the idea of something like Strong Jaw and Mega Launcher, as the neutrality against everything is great, but Levitate would also limit us in some ways due to having to pick between aoa sets, where we hit everything for neutral, or a 3a set, where we'd have to pick and choose our counter, which is more akin to Eternatus imo.

I wanted to suggest Mountaineer, but it got omega shut down and Levitate fits the vibe better anyways.

 

[Amamama]

One Thing that concerns me with some of the offensively inclined subs, is that we correctly identify the issues this typing has in replicating Eternatus offensively, which requires finding a STAB plus coverage COMBINATION that is neutral for 3a sets and almost fully neutral for 2a sets (something that is almost only possible through ability) and then push abilities that exacerbate the problem by either boosting STABs while ignoring coverage (which makes coverage hit comparatively weaker and thus worsening the matchups where we need them) or boosting both STABs and coverage which basically does nothing for our offensive sets while at least decreasing pressure on stats.
While they technically manage to solve some of our issues by making our STABs more spammable they don’t do it in a way that makes the Mon look closer to Eternatus.

Abilities like Adaptability, Sheer Force, Grassy Terrain setters and Merciless do this to different degrees, which is the reason I like neither of them.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think a 3 attacks or all out attacking set are more than feasible just with the typing and the correct coverage, something that has been shown by multiple grass/poison attackers in lower tiers (Grass/Poison, Fire/Dark/Ground or stuff like Grass, Ground/Water, Rock/Ice are pretty decent offensive combinations that would work on a 3a set).
The issue is that with our current build a 2A set seems much weaker bc our STAB typing doesn’t generate enough coverage for a sufficiently strong 2a coverage.
And what makes it worse is that it is pretty difficult to alleviate this issue just with stats or moves.
That said there are two possible paths to do that, which I believe are kinda constraining to achieve.

1) accept the 2a set will not be sufficient wrt coverage (something which veers away from Eternatus vibes imo) and focus on defensive utility by improving the defensive profile through stats and moves (and ability)
This could also end up constraining the offensive output of the three attacks set. I’d call this the Mega-Venusaur approach.

2) Design Stats and moveset in a way that creates a third STAB without ability aka having relatively higher power coverage compared to STABs and offensive Stats that support this. I call this the Kartana approach. (I’m not saying we need kartana stats for this, just that the stats are designed in a way that at least one coverage moves ends up on the powerlevel of at least one STAB. For example Poison Jab is as strong as headlong rush which means relatively speaking HLR can perform as a pseudo STAB move if the stats support this.)


These are potential paths, however it could be difficult to nevigate them properly.

For this reason I believe we should solve the issue during abilities by meaningfully expanding the 2a coverage of this Mon in a way that makes it similar to Eternatus Dragon plus Fire coverage.

At the moment I can see three(and a half) abilities that do this.

1) Tinted Lens:
Tinted lens means one STAB is enough to cover most of the meta with just the addition of a single coverage move. It’s notable that this is true for both STABs. At the same time the coverage is weak enough that there’s solid potential for a three attacks set to exist that focuses on hitting more mons Super effectively and picking up the remaining few resists.

2) Strong Jaw/Mega Launcher
Past successful Grass type attackers have shown the potency of Grass plus Dark as coverage. Granted most of them have used Knock off something we probably don’t want to hand out since it doesn’t vibe the same way as Eternatus. Poison also pairs decently well with Dark.
For this reason these two abilities enable Pseudo Dark STAB to Give Dark as coverage more potency. While Mega Launcher is the most minimal approach, which basically only enables one additional move we want Strong Jaw enables Poison fang as well which is just a very cool move to consider.
For a 2a set in particular this coverage compresses super effective hits vs 3 Ghost/Steel resists to our Stabs (Pult, Dengo, Kit) and two poison types (Gking/Pech).
Similar to Tinted lens a Dark Pseudo STAB also opens up other 3rd Coverage options which where previously impossible to achieve, like Rock, Ice, Fairy or Electric.

3) Rocky Payload/Galvanize
These two function as pseudo stab that similar to the above options expand what we can use as coverage.
In comparison however, they also make it much more likely that we always end up dropping at least one STAB move (Glavanize is more likely to keep either of the two, Rocky Payload likely means we always drop the poison move).
Again though both expand the neutral and super effective hits of the combo considerably, allowing a functional 2a set.

Overall I would endorse 1) and 2) and would like to see at least one of the three options on the slate.
3) is an option but I’m not sure about the benefits outweighing other implications.

 

[Feldirion]

I've seen a lot of abilities thrown around, but the only one that really speaks to me is Tinted Lens.

Why? Well, at a glance you would say it just bolsters our offensive presence. There are plenty of other abilities that do that- like Sheer Force, or Adaptability- but Sheer Force pigeonholes us into Life Orb sets and Adaptability disincentivizes using our coverage. Tinted Lens, however, offers us something few other abilities can: reliability.

If you take out the resistances to Grass-Poison, Mininatus suddenly has so many more options. It's not as dependent on either STAB, it can pick up it's coverage for more SE hits- it can even break past some of those troublesome walls (though not many, I will admit.) Versatility has been our buzzword so far, and Tinted Lens allows us to be versatile while also falling back on a solid foundation. Why not stick to our guns on this one?

 

[Lumpfriend]

I also really like Tinted Lens, particularly for the reasons given in Amamama's post.

Eternatus' Dragon STAB + Fire coverage is hitting everything in the SV Ubers tier for at least neutral damage, and against fat neutral targets it can usually threaten poison with Sludge Bomb and/or Toxic. Grass/Poison mini-Eternatus in CAP has nothing close to this right now afaict (big list of type combinations incoming):

Fire and Ground both leave major holes:
Grass + Fire can barely touch most Dragon and Fire types -- resisted hits are still making progress against some of these mons, like Dragapult, but a lot of these quad-resist Grass or are bulky enough not to care.
Poison + Fire is resisted by Garg, Mollux, Heatran, Pult, Ceruledge, Moth, Chugg, Ram... (all B+ or better!), and without Grass isn't doing much to like, Ting-Lu.
Grass + Ground can't touch flying types like Moltres, Zapdos, Corviknight, Venomicon, or Dragonite, and the occasional Grass or Bug type like Hydrapple and Miasmaw.
Poison + Ground is useless into Libra and Corv, and bad into Lando and Venom.

Dark, Rock, or Electric might be a bit better, but could require a targeted move/type boosting ability (or a powerful signature move to be freed) to be strong enough:
Grass + Dark is resisted by Hemogoblin, Kingambit, Weezing-G, and a few other B or lower mons like Enam and Meowscarada.
Poison + Dark is resisted by mainly Ting-Lu, Tusk, Kingambit.
Grass + Rock is resisted by Ghold, Gambit, Kit, and Iron Crown
Grass + Electric is resisted by some of the Dragon and Grass types (Kyurem, Hydrapple, Caribolt, Pult, Rilla...).

Water + Poison of all things might have the most neutral 2-type coverage with one of our STABs, but it still can't hit Mollux (or Clodsire I guess) and is resisted by Dragapult and Chuggalong... and then you're only ever running Grass moves to hit like Mola/Arg/Dozo and that feels kinda weird.

Needing 3 attacks to round out the neutral coverage isn't a deal breaker for viability or anything, but it definitely makes us less like Eternatus. This is especially true when so many of the Pokemon we struggle to hit are Poison and Steel types -- fishing for Poison with neutral Sludge Bomb hits like Eternatus does is not a thing we can easily recreate here, and there many more Poison- or Toxic-immune Pokemon throughout CAP in general, and they usually have higher relevance (e.g. Gliscor). This especially hurts 2A + Toxic sets which are currently getting hard-walled by a significant chunk of the meta without intervention from some of the more high-powered abilities that have been suggested (particularly Corrosion). Spammernoob I think made the point that we should avoid being hard-walled as much as possible, because our inability to setup and snowball means we need to have a high "value floor", and that seems like the right intuition here.

Others have already gone over this but Tinted Lens uniquely interacts with Grass + Poison to give us interactions that are mostly neutral but still not perfect, because of Steel types and the high amount of quad-resists to Grass (most notably Corv, Moltres, Mollux, and Heatran?). We still need coverage. What we get is that a Tinted Lens Grass or Poison move can combine with Fire or Ground or whatever else to actually hit almost the entire tier neutrally. Because of the various immunities running around there will still be a couple hard walls but the situation is a lot more manageable. I think it makes a big difference for our momentum to great reduce the number of targets that can switch in and out on us for free with minimal prediction because we do a whole load of Butt to them; say we don't run Ground coverage, being able to do STAB-boosted neutral damage to Slowking-G is huge. Or say we're spamming Giga Drain, hitting Corv for 1/2 damage instead of 1/4 can be the difference between actually making progress or not.

Besides that, viol and bass' suggestion that Tinted Lens makes our Grass (or Poison) STAB feel more like an Eternatus Dynamax Cannon makes a lot of pro-concept sense to me though I'm not familiar with Ubers myself.

 

[Guingil]

Thank you all for your submissions as well as the feedback and support posts (keep them coming!).

I think it is important to remember that in a process like this, where we have Eternatus as a model, we will inevitably have contention over what translating it means. As spammernoob points out in his post, do we translate the ability's function alone, the ability in context, or, as viol and bass says, give more weight to replicating the overall "vibe" of the Pokemon, even if it comes at the cost of a more defining ability?

Perhaps there is no right answer that meets all the criteria, or the right answer strikes a balance between these categories. The variety of abilities submitted reflects this, each ticking off different boxes in our checklist of "being Eternatus". I want to give you an idea of where I am on the ones I am considering for the slate, along with questions to focus the discussion on specific aspects that give me pause. The final slate will drop ~48 hours after this post, with a 24-hour reminder warning. If you want to submit an ability for consideration that has not been brought up yet, this is your sign not to dilly-dally any longer so that it can receive sufficient discussion.

A quick addendum to a conclusion, as perhaps I failed to communicate some context in my wording. I think 3A sets with something like Life Orb do not need as much help as 2A + utility ones, as one STAB + coverage combination at the moment would still feel lacking compared to Eternatus. An offensive OR utility ability can deal with common defensive threats by hitting them hard or hurting them in other ways (Corrosion, for example). A defensive ability can also do this by denying defensive threats their tools, like status or any chip on CAP38 through passive recovery, as well. It is more about ensuring a value floor there in certain matchups than it is about offenses in general.

Anyway, current placings!

Almost guaranteed slate:

Tinted Lens
Mold Breaker

In contention:

Corrosion
Limber
Flower Veil
Seed Sower
Third STAB / specific move-boost abilities

Unlikely but can hear you out:

Neutralizing Gas
Lingering Aroma/Wandering Spirit
Thick Fat
Levitate
Magician

Very unlikely:
All the rest

Questions:

1) For Corrosion, is leaning towards 2-attack sets versus 3-attack sets too much of a risk with Toxic?
I have seen this point brought up. Yes, Toxic might be but isn't universally assumed, but let's assume we have it here. For me, Corrosion forcibly replicates the power of Toxic in Ubers, which has a noted lack of Poison- and Steel-types, into the CAP metagame. But despite the power of Toxic in that tier, Eternatus still uses its offensive sets. And we have more absorbers in the metagame as a balancing factor, as spammernoob said (Clefable, Krilowatt, Gholdengo, Garganacl, Gliscor, Snaelstrom, Hatterene). Is the change so big that 2A sets, which we were mainly concerned about being too weak, swing all the way over to dominating rather than being balanced with 3A sets (given that Sludge Bomb is also boosted to be able to Poison the namesake type)? Can stats help there?

2) Is Flower Veil doing too much compared to Limber?
On the one hand, my first set of questions explicitly asked if we needed passive resilience in a metagame where Toxic is not as common, and this fits within that. On the other hand, this ability adds another status absorber into the metagame and gives immunity to stat drops as well. That is a lot and very defining to the Pokemon's role. If only the paralysis prevention is important, can we not have Limber? There is some aspect to the cost to stats / movepool through this ability as well that perhaps balances it, but I am not convinced that the Tera drawback does, given that our typing is not something we want to immediately Tera out of like Garganacl. Some concrete scenarios could help me make sense of this.

3) Is Seed Sower's strength on passive sets mitigating its low value floor against certain matchups?
Seed Sower has many neat aspects similar to Eternatus's usage of Pressure, as well as extra things like helping 3A Life Orb sets, but it does thud against some Pokemon with 2A sets. Is the sheer annoyance of 6% or 12% recovery every turn, endlessly, with a Toxic-immune typing, making up for this by making the set a matchup fish of sorts? You win harder by being a passive demon, at the cost of really bad matchups against certain others. Is this an accurate characterization, considering that the Grass STAB boost still loses against stuff like Glowking?

4) Is neutral coverage for third STAB / specific move boosting enough?
One focus during the typing stage was preferring super effective coverage over neutral ones, but some of the proposed typings for triple STAB focus on the Dark type. Sure, you beat some Ghost and Psychic types, but neither is intrinsically resistant to both STABs like Poison and Steel are and their being resistant to us is due to metagame factors. I am not convinced this is enough or even very Eternatus-like yet. There are some arguments for Fire or Ground boosting abilities, but I would like a more detailed exploration of these to get a better idea.

Feel free to answer any of these that you feel strongly about, or even contest my placement of some abilities in the almost guaranteed section or in the super unlikely one.

 

[Gekokeso]

Still super against Mold Breaker, it seems people don't really know the difference between a completely useless ability like this, and stuff that are actually low power abilities that slightly affects matchups. Deffensively this does absolutely nothing. Offensively, this ability affects 1 matchup. Yes you heard me right, 1 matchup and that is Equilibra getting hit with Earth Power, which we already hit decetly well with our grass stab.. That is literally the only thing this ability does for us, if we even choose ground coverage to begin with when its notably one of the weaker options compared to something like fire or rock that this ability does absolutely nothing for us. I reiterate, were are not going to get many utility options, we made this clear in concept assessment. Thus many of the potential status moves people have in mind for the next stage with this ability are not guaranteed and unlikely to make it in, making the ability nearly completely useless on the utility front as well.

You want actual low power ability representation that actually does good stuff into improving our current matchups? You got the options of Limber, Seed Sower and the abilities of Lingering Aroma / Wandering Spirit. The latter two I 100% think need to be slated over Mold Breaker. Lingering Aroma / Wandering Spirit are both ability removal options that actually affect a significant number of interactions as well as giving us a defined niche in the metagame. The ability to remove opposing mon's ability when hit by an offensive move alone makes switching into us a gamble and a niche in the meta, and I'll even argue they are the abilities in the slate that most ressemble the way Eternatus uses pressure in Ubers. Etern's usage of the ability is by discouraging the opponent from hitting it, especially with signature moves, because it will drain their attacking pp and thus makes them slowly lose the battle of atrition. LA / WS do the same as by hitting us on the switch in the opponent loses an important part of the current mon's capabilities, like Alomomola clicking Flip Turn or Gliscor going for the knock off. I'll support slotting LA or WS even if Mold Breaker still makes it in, since the abilities have some actual value that helps in very key matchups.

Regarding the questions:
Corrosion: I think if we choose Corrosion we are going to have to accept that 1) it will get Toxic one way or another, I doubt we will be able to deny it that, 2) It will lead to us dropping our Poison stab for GrassSTAB/Toxic/Recover/Coverage sets, with even our main stab getting dropped. I come to terms that this is somewhat acceptable as stab/coverage/recovery/status is a very signature Ubers sets for Etern and other mons in the Ubers. metagame.
Flower Veil and Limber: Both need to be slated. Limber is a great abilty for matchups where we theoretically switch-in but are annoyed by getting hit like a twave from the likes of Shox and Cres, as well as scratching off the itch of the people who want a lower power ability for some reason. Flower Veil is the more nuclear option that will lead to reduced bulk but its gives us a bigger niche, with both being immune to stat drops and other status like burn and sleep. It is also an ability I really wish we get to explore in gen 9, cause its probably the last tera gen and thus the only one where we can explore the wonky nature of type changes with Flower Veil.
Seed Sower: Seed Sower I still think is extremely underpowered and thus I don't think it will affect neither offensive or defensive matchups very much, so I don't think many considerations come with it other than its weak and the rest of the cap will have to compensate for it.
Extra STAB abilities: Stuff like Mega Launcher and Sharpness are weird and while I don't think STABless neutral coverage will be enough, people don't seem to remember they also like, have super effective coverage. Like Aura Sphere and Sacred Sword are options that hit steels and thus actually help our offensive matchups fairly good. I would discourage Strong Jaw, I would support Mega Launcher and Sharpness making it in.

 

[the mystery duck]

Oh cool, the two almost guaranteed ones are my favorites.

1) For Corrosion, is leaning towards 2-attack sets versus 3-attack sets too much of a risk with Toxic?

2) Is Flower Veil doing too much compared to Limber?

3) Is Seed Sower's strength on passive sets mitigating its low value floor against certain matchups?

4) Is neutral coverage for third STAB / specific move boosting enough?

1) Depends on the stats and our coverage of choice. For example, if we choose fire then I would say there is little risk (compared to ground or dark). Even if we don't choose fire, the leaning towards 3A or 2A sets can be solved by stats with this ability. I agree with Corrosion being on the slate regardless of this cap getting toxic or not.

2) Flower Veil's status immunity leading to reduced bulk should be seen as a good thing. Less strain on stats when we are trying to translate Eternatus, which has all of power, bulk, and speed in ubers, into cap ou. Limber is cool too, but favor Flower Veil compared to it.

3) Honestly, no. I agree with geko that this ability is much more underpowered compared to pressure on Eternatus in ubers. This is on top of this cap's offensive issues. Seed Sower would more likely encourage 3 utility, 1 attack movesets (stuff like sub, recover, toxic, protect, etc.) and that is not Eternatus-like.

4) Out of the third STAB / specific move boosting abilities, I think only Sharpness for physical is boosting enough.

Also, I support Levitate being on the slate.

 

[AzothBend]

Before directly addressing some of our SL's most recent questions, I'd like to advocate for my preferred option — Flower Veil — to be slated and to list the options I find most compelling so far:

Tinted Lens
Mold Breaker
Corrosion
Flower Veil
Seed Sower
Strong Jaw/Mega Launcher

1) For Corrosion, is leaning towards 2-attack sets versus 3-attack sets too much of a risk with Toxic?
I have seen this point brought up. Yes, Toxic might be but isn't universally assumed, but let's assume we have it here. For me, Corrosion forcibly replicates the power of Toxic in Ubers, which has a noted lack of Poison- and Steel-types, into the CAP metagame. But despite the power of Toxic in that tier, Eternatus still uses its offensive sets. And we have more absorbers in the metagame as a balancing factor, as spammernoob said (Clefable, Krilowatt, Gholdengo, Garganacl, Gliscor, Snaelstrom, Hatterene). Is the change so big that 2A sets, which were our main concern, swing all the way over to dominating rather than being balanced with 3A sets (given that Sludge Bomb is also boosted to be able to Poison the namesake type)? Can stats help there?

I don't agree that 2A sets are our primary concern over 3A sets. But that's an aside for now.

Let's remove Poison-types from consideration, as we would already have other means (i.e. Sludge Bomb) to Poison them and the most common Poison-type is a Regenerator Pivot that shrugs off Toxic damage. The question perhaps becomes whether it is worth running Toxic over Poison STAB for Steel-types. The simple answer is 'no.' Let's remember that CAP38 already wil have some way of hitting most Steel-types for SE damage. If you look at some of the actual Steel-types in question:

• Equilibra: Good Toxic target, but its neutrality to Grass STAB and lack of recovery means CAP38 can win the war of attrition without Toxic
• Gholdengo: Corrosion doesn't ignore Good as Gold so its a non-starter
• Kingambit: Notoriously a late game sweeper — where Toxic does not have the time to ramp up — or a stallbreaker that punishes passive plays like Toxic; it's a means to avoid Sucker Punch...I guess
• Kitsunoh: A pivot with recovery; U-turn + Strength Sap make Toxic damage unlikely to actually stick over a match
• Corviknight: Another pivot with recovery, though it can run set up...where the primary damaging moves either deal recoil or are resisted by CAP38; still probably the best target for Toxic on this list.
• Ramnarok: Half the time it isn't even Steel-type, One-hundred percent of the time, CAP38 is not sticking around to try and land Toxic; while you can try to read the switch-in, would you rather land a Toxic or Ground coverage into an incoming Ramnarok?

As you may see, frankly, I'm not even convinced Toxic is that much better than Sludge Bomb with Corrosion. If it is, we also always have the option of denying Toxic in the movepool stage or giving offensive sets an edge in stats. This is not a big concern.

2) Is Flower Veil doing too much compared to Limber?
On the one hand, my first set of questions explicitly asked if we needed passive resilience in a metagame where Toxic is not as common, and this fits within that. On the other hand, this ability adds another status absorber into the metagame and gives immunity to stat drops as well. That is a lot and very defining to the Pokemon's role. If only the paralysis prevention is important, can we not have Limber? There is some aspect to the cost to stats / movepool through this ability as well that perhaps balances it, but I am not convinced that the Tera drawback does, given that our typing is not something we want to immediately Tera out of like Garganacl. Some concrete scenarios could help me make sense of this.

Previously, I would have said 'yes.' I've since come around. Let's walk through what Flower Veil actually does: it grants status immunity and blocks stat drops for Grass-type Pokemon. Left's start with the first part: status immunity. CAP 38 is already immune to Poison status by its typing and Sleep is not a consideration in the metagame. Limber covers Paralysis anyway, so it's irrelevant here. That leaves Burn and Freeze.

• Burn: CAP38 never wants to take a Fire move that can threaten burn; Scald and Will-o-Wisp are the actual worries, especially coming from 'mons like Cresceidonand Alomomola, and only really if CAP38 is physically-oriented
• Freeze: If this status wasn't already uncommon, CAP38 never wants to be in a position where an Ice-type attack or Polar Flare even threatens it

Even if CAP38 wanted to flex into a defensive Tera to take advantage of the Poison immunity or take a Fire ot Ice-type attack, Flower Veil is self-limiting. It only applies to Grass-type Pokemon. Any option besides Tera Grass foregoes the ability entirely.

Blocking stat drops is a bit more nebulous of a concern with so many potential sources. Still, it seems notable for CAP38, which will lack reliable set up, to ignore stat drops that will push it to switch out. This is especially true for, again, Cresceidon 's Moonblast on a specially-oriented CAP38. Flower Veil doesn't so much flip any match-ups as much as it ensures safer switch-ins.

 

[fayestra]

IMO the ability should help in some way to pressure status immunities. In my mind, Eternatus is an all-rounder that you can specialize with EVs/item/moves, and the most common sets are a mix of spreading poison (sludge bomb, toxic, or t-spikes) + pressuring status immunities with dragon stab and fire coverage. Replacing Dragon with Grass is worse for making progress, which is why the ability should pick up the slack. Corrosion and Tinted Lens are the most appealing suggestions so far, though I could see something else providing similar benefits. Lingering Aroma could be a neat trick, but Poison and Steel types seem like a bigger problem than the anti-status abilities.

For questions (skipping 1 since I don't have a strong opinion on it):

2) Limber isn't a great choice to mimic Eternatus, Flower Veil is worse. Both abilities double down on being reliable speed control when Eternatus is vulnerable to Paralysis and Sticky Web, and neither help this pokemon's ability to make progress. In a vacuum, I don't think Flower Veil does too much, in this context I think it pushes too far in the wrong direction.

3) Similar to Limber, Seed Sower doesn't do anything to make progress and doubles down on making this a strong defensive pokemon. If it had a better offensive typing, it'd be good to bolster defense, but currently the offensive shortcomings are a bigger priority.

4) The third STAB suggestions seem like they're boosting pretty average power moves, like the 80 BP Crunch, which don't seem like they'd be strong enough especially when compared to Eternatus having either 100 or 130 BP Dragon stab to hit other Poison types for neutral and 90 or 110 BP Fire coverage to hit Steels for super effective. The potential for good Fighting coverage would be nice against Steels, but Grass/Fighting and Poison/Fighting are both poor 2-type combos, and all 3 together are resisted by Poison types. Sheer Force could boost Fire/Ground coverage but would move away from being mini-Eternatus by removing the ability to augment damage with poison chip.

 

[spoo]

I'd advocate for a very tight slate. Spammer is correct above that there are multiple ways of defining concept adherence. As a result of having a broad, somewhat subjective criteria, it's easy enough to argue that most abilities are pro-concept in Some Way. Still, I can't help but feel that many of these claims are quite weak — and even when they're not, the ability might be too do-nothing anyway. Tinted Lens and Flower Veil feel like the only options to me that are both A) high-impact enough to address our goals at this juncture (raising value floor), and B) have a strong and intuitive argument for concept adherence. In general, I don't believe we have an abundance of good abilities in front of us.

edit: I’m coming around to Flower Veil being less useful than I thought at first. Corrosion is a hard one for me to evaluate but I’m slowly warming up to it. Still not crazy about the Dark-boosting abilities, but they have enough support that one of them should probably make slate. A terrain ability should be included as they’re also broadly supported. I think a slate of [Tinted Lens, Flower Veil, Corrosion, Dark-boosting ability, Grassy Surge or Seed Sower, Mold Breaker] makes the most sense. Neutralizing Gas as a potential 7th if you’re feeling spicy, but I fear it’s definitely doing too much (sorry noob).

---

mold breaker snip

This whole argument comes off to me as a straw man and grossly misrepresents the benefits of the ability. I'll make clear that I strongly prefer other options over Mold Breaker, but saying that people want it because of some obscure hypothetical utility moves we might get down the line is just dishonest — not one person has said this — and the claim that it only affects one matchup offensively is not a position that's rooted in factual analysis either.

Zetalz laid out this ability the best, but I'll expand on a couple things I find important. Hitting Equilibra with Ground-coverage is the ability's biggest draw (Grass STAB is only doing like 30% even with Life Orb), but I think this framing is missing the forest for the trees. By removing one of the largest roadblocks to Grass/Poison/Ground coverage, 3A coverage with Ground becomes much stronger than 3A coverage with Fire — we no longer have to worry about Pokemon like Slowking-G, Mollux, AV Ramnarok, Ceruledge, and so on. The only major concerns would be Corviknight, which is rare and easily exploited, and Venomicon, which is rare and a problem either way. Bypassing Multiscale and Unaware is notable for enabling setup sets, and while we may have positive matchups against Arghonaut and Cresceidon regardless, these are two Pokemon famously capable of ruining a setup sweeper's day by tanking super-effective hits with the combination of ability and raw bulk. Lastly, while sniping Garganacl (and to a much lesser extent Hatterene) with Toxic isn't a "defensive benefit" in the strict sense, our 2A defensive set is nonetheless what sees the impact — we'd be a true Garg check that can force all sets out regardless of Tera type, and would be a situational check to CM Hatt (again, not as important).

Most of these interactions aren't great in isolation, but the argument is basically that its multiple small benefits compound on each other into a serviceable choice (compared to something like Limber, which is just one medium-sized benefit). Having said all of that... this ability is still without a doubt one of the lowest impact options we could give out. I believe it's the best out of all the niche / low-impact abilities, but, as I said, I still strongly prefer other options.

---

Random tangent, but I'd feel odd seeing Neutralizing Gas and Seed Sower both slated. Some of the arguments I've seen about Seed Sower are along the lines of "terrain is useful, but Grassy Surge is too high-impact." If we're considering Neutralizing Gas, this just doesn't make sense anymore. Neutralizing Gas is so high-impact with such a unique array of powerful use cases that its abusers often come to be defined by their ability above all else (not unlike Magic Bounce, as the most extreme example of this phenomenon). Rejecting Grassy Surge on the grounds that it's too impactful feels hypocritical if we slate something arguably even stronger. I'm aware there are other arguments for Seed Sower about its reactivation being useful, but yeah that's my two cents.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Random tangent, but I'd feel odd seeing Neutralizing Gas and Seed Sower both slated. Some of the arguments I've seen about Seed Sower are along the lines of "terrain is useful, but Grassy Surge is too high-impact." If we're considering Neutralizing Gas, this just doesn't make sense anymore. Neutralizing Gas is so high-impact with such a unique array of powerful use cases that its abusers often come to be defined by their ability above all else (not unlike Magic Bounce, as the most extreme example of this phenomenon). Rejecting Grassy Surge on the grounds that it's too impactful feels hypocritical if we slate something arguably even stronger. I'm aware there are other arguments for Seed Sower about its reactivation being useful, but yeah that's my two cents.

as the person who submitted seed sower, i agree. neutralizing gas goes beyond even the average "guy" ability. it's extremely high-impact, mon-defining, sometimes even format-defining, and if we're going to be including it on the slate it's kind of a tacit rejection of the argument that our ability being low-impact is an important factor. so if we're going to slate neutralizing gas, grassy surge should definitely be slated over seed sower

 

[dex]

I don’t like much of what’s been submitted already, so I won’t make the usual ratings post. Instead, I present y’all with a late submission:

Filter ( / Solid Rock but I’m just gonna say Filter for simplicity)

I really prefer the ability to be “understated” but still have some effect. I think that’s the minuscule target we are trying to hit with mimicking Eternatus. To that end, I think Filter is a very good choice. Filter improves Grass/Poison’s defensive profile, letting the typing trade more efficiently against things that would typically threaten it. This is a very Eternatus quality, just trading well. It also helps it mimic some of that classic Eternatus bulk by making it unbothered by weak coverage from Pokemon like Krilowatt and Dragapult. Consider it!

After thinking about all the subs more, the only one I even remotely like is Seed Sower, and even that’s sorta ehhh to me. I really dislike Corrosion because of how it just flips matchups and is just an annoying as fuck ability. Tinted Lens seems pretty anti concept considering we’ve talked about coverage being a pretty integral part of this process. Flower Veil also doesn’t feel super on brand to me. Mold Breaker is pretty OK but I feel like it just doesn’t do enough. And Strong Jaw/Mega Launcher is just kinda blegh in my opinion and not at all Eternatus-like.

 

[Spammernoob]

I'll lead off with my Neutralizing Gas shill post 2, feel free to skip if you're just here for answers to guingil's questions

Neutralizing Gas shill

Ubers VR exerpt (S and A ranks)

Koraidon
Zacian-Crowned
Kyogre
Ho-Oh
Necrozma-DM
Arceus
Arceus-Ground
Eternatus
Arceus-Fairy
Lunala
Arceus-Water
Kingambit
Landorus-T
Groudon
Deoxys-S
Calyrex-I

CAP VR exerpt (S and A ranks)

Gliscor
Ting-Lu
Zamazenta
Arghonaut
Darkrai
Great Tusk
Hemogoblin
Kyurem
Ogerpon-Wellspring
Revenankh
Alomomola
Cresceidon
Dragapult
Equilibra
Garganacl
Gholdengo
Mollux
Moltres
Pecharunt
Slowking-Galar
Snaelstrom
Clefable
Deoxys-Speed
Dragonite
Iron Moth
Kingambit
Kitsunoh
Tornadus-Therian

One look at these lists should instantly give you the impression that abilities play a much bigger role in CAP than Ubers. Outside of a few outlier abilities, like Lunala's Shadow Shield, and Ho-oh's Regenerator, most abilities in Ubers are primarily offensive boosts that supplement the Pokemon they're on. Contrast this with CAP, where many Pokemon are defined by their ability, to the degree that they see play in Ubers despite their severely lacking stats (eg. Hatterene, Gliscor).

Neutralizing Gas disables these defining abilities, and evens the playing field. CAP38 wouldn't be defined by its ability, but rather its strong fundamentals (stats / moves / typing) that allow it to win interactions when abilities aren't in play. This allows CAP38 to emulate Eternatus' playstyle in Ubers, where it leverages its stats to outtrade opposing Pokemon (if Etern had to deal with a well-statted Poison Heal mon or pivoting Ho-oh, it would crash out for sure).

Random Weeb Rambling (don't read)

I feel like the trope of "main character without magic, that disables others' magic" is pretty common, but I can't think of that many right now. Imagine Breaker from Magical Index is the only one that really comes to mind right now; I think it captures a nice feeling.

The nice thing with Neutralizing Gas is that it instantly solves our viability concerns. As long as we properly balance stats, movepool could start and end with UAM + Recover and still be fine.

1) For Corrosion, is leaning towards 2-attack sets versus 3-attack sets too much of a risk with Toxic?

I'll use a table to evaluate 2a combinations into Pokemon that can take Corrosion Toxic:

Corrosion Matchups

Pokemon	Grass / Poison	Poison / Coverage	Grass / Coverage
Clefable	2x	2x	1x
Gliscor	1x	Coverage	1x
Snaelstrom	1x	1x	1x
Hatterene	2x	2x	1x
Garganacl	2x	Coverage	2x
Krilowatt	2x	1x	2x
Gholdengo	0.5x	Coverage	Coverage

It is probably true that 2a is strong with Toxic, though some matchups depend heavily on coverage chosen.

The main benefit of running 3a over 2a + Toxic is immediate damage. CAP38 will be fast, so if we tune its bulk correctly, avoiding damage by outspeeding and killing the opposing Pokemon will be very valuable. I think it's pretty easy to balance stats so offensive spreads are disincentivized from running Toxic, at least. On bulkier sets, you have to choose between bulk, speed and power; this is especially relevant since power is needed to actually break the Pokemon that switch in to Toxic (especially the Poison Heal mons, but CM Clef can also get out of hand without sufficient output). The balance will be highly contingent on how well we thread the needle in stats, but this goal is aligned with our goal for stats laid out in Concept Assessment, so it shouldn't pose any problems.

2) Is Flower Veil doing too much compared to Limber?
Compared to Limber, Flower Veil is giving us Burn immunity, Clear Body effects, and marginally, Sleep and Freeze immunity.
I'll go through CAP Viability Rankings until B rank and list which Pokemon use these affects, ordered roughly by how relevant they are to the matchup with CAP38. Atk and SpA drop will assume the stat is actually relevant, and Burn will assume CAP38 is Physical (if CAP38 is special, Burn becomes less important, but Flower Veil notably denies Hex).

List of interactions

Burn:
Swings matchup:
Solidifies matchup:
Loses regardless:
Atk Drop:
Swings matchup:
Solidifies matchup:
Loses regardless:
SpA Drop:
Swings matchup:
Solidifies matchup: (?)
Loses regardless:
Def/SpDef Drop:
Swings matchup:
Solidifies matchup:
Loses regardless:
Spe Drop:
Swings matchup:
Solidifies matchup:
Loses regardless:

Flower Veil's primary advantage over Limber is enabling physical sets to not worry about Burn (from Ghosts mainly), Clear Body is a bonus with a few relevant matchups that it locks down, but there is a reason Clear Body is not considered a particularly powerful ability. Of course, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but in this case I think it simply facilitates a more comfortable experience rather than being particularly defining. Ultimately, this is the best answer I can give, as "too much" is a subjective assessment.

Of note, Flower Veil does nothing post-Tera unless we use Tera Grass (which makes Toxic immunity suddenly relevant, funnily enough).


3) Is Seed Sower's strength on passive sets mitigating its low value floor against certain matchups?

CAP38 does not strike me as a Pokemon that can afford to sit around to proc multiple rounds of Seed Sower. The primary reason I think this is because Toxic is not a reliable progress-making tool in CAP. If CAP38 could reliably Toxic the opposing team for progress, then it offsets the chip healing Seed Sower provides to the opponent, while increasing the value it provides to CAP38 (more stalled turns). However, since this is not the case, I don't actually see this ability being particularly strong; perhaps its on balance more positive than negative, but

Additionally, CAP38 does not benefit from sitting around and staying in forever that well. Eternatus would likely enjoy Seed Sower most on a Cosmic Power set, but that is not our object of focus here. LO 3a and defensive both benefit more from Grassy Surge (which I think is probably fine here) since offensive sets can offset LO recoil without having to take a hit first, and defensive sets usually do not stay in long enough for a second Seed Sower proc anyways.


4) Is neutral coverage for third STAB / specific move boosting enough?

I think the way to think about this is that we are basically accepting that our best way to hit some Pokemon is with a neutral coverage move, and boosting its power up to the level of STAB. Boosted Crunch or Dark Pulse are equivalent in power to 80bp STAB, so if we think spamming a neutral STAB move is enough (which it is for Etern), then so is this (though our STABs will probably be ~90bp).

In practice, this does make CAP38 more prediction reliant than Eternatus, unless Dark becomes our spammable STAB (which is hilarious). I think this is pretty comparable to Tinted Lens, in bolstering our neutral STAB profile. All of these undermine our typing stage a bit, but maybe this is fine; it's not too far off of bolstering defensive profile with, say, Thick Fat if we had a more offensively inclined typing.

I made this table that may be useful as reference, but it ends up not being super relevant to my answer here. Oops.

Matchup of proposed coverage options into dual-STAB-resisting Pokemon

Pokemon	Fire	Dark	Ground
Cawmodore	2x	1x	0x
Ceruledge	0.5x	2x	2x
Chuggalong	0.5x	1x	2x
Corviknight	2x	1x	0x
Dragapult	0.5x	2x	1x
Gholdengo	2x	2x	2x
Iron Moth	0.5x	1x	4x
Kingambit	2x	0.5x	2x
Kitsunoh	2x	2x	2x
Mollux	0.5x	1x	4x
Pajantom	0.5x	2x	1x
Pecharunt	1x	2x	2x
Plasmanta	1x	1x	4x
Ramnarok	1x	1x	4x
Slowking-Galar	1x	2x	2x
Venomicon	1x	1x	0x
Tera Steel	2x	1x	2x
Tera Poison	2x	1x	2x

 

[viol and bass]

I'm gonna answer these but also use them as a jumping off point to discuss the abilities mentioned more generally.

For Corrosion, is leaning towards 2-attack sets versus 3-attack sets too much of a risk with Toxic?

There are a few abilities that I think kind of require an offensive-leaning stat spread for set balance. Corrosion is one of them. You can create a balance where fatter sets have only moderately good bulk but make up for that with amazing utility, while offensive sets stand on their own merit via stats. Something like fat Gholdengo could be a model for this. Denying Toxic does make the set balance a bit easier, but I think 3 attacks sets are still fine. Overall it's not bad. Corrosion clarifies your coverage, because offensive sets now feel pretty comfortable running the fire move now that you're threatening poison on Mollux Glowking etc., which is honestly a very nice benefit. I agree that Corrosion Sludge Bomb into CAP feels somewhat similar to Etern Sludge Bomb into Ubers.

Is Flower Veil doing too much compared to Limber?

Personally I just don't think Limber is really worth considering unfortunately. It's very focused on a couple of matchups, primarily Cresceidon, but we beat that mon forever even if we get paralyzed in the process. Paralysis is annoying but I don't see a great reason to use our ability slot on this. Flower Veil does more, obviously. It could enable physical sets (which otherwise I'm skeptical about), making these sets feel more like Eternatus because they can click moves with a bit more impunity, and it also blocks parting shot. It gives you a better matchup against Hex users and the like. Overall, I think may be a bit lower power than people suspect. Denying our ability to tera is also a massive downside. Is it what we need here? Not exactly in my opinion– its various effects add up to something signifcant, but they also feel scattered.

Is Seed Sower's strength on passive sets mitigating its low value floor against certain matchups?

...Kind of. Seed Sower is an ability that shits the balance much much more defensive.

Its passive healing is fantastic defensively, and fits well with various "stally" tactics. The Earthquake thing is nice but overall probably negligible. But offensively, we're healing our enemies, which makes them harder to take out. The vast majority of mons we actually get to click moves against are going to resist grass, and in many cases quad resist it. The grass boost is only marginally useful in such cases. For another thing, we have to tank a hit to activate the ability, which is easier if you're fat. All of these aspects shift the balance more defensive.

Like Corrosion, the way to make up for this is with quite offensive-leaning stats. So my answer to this question is a tentative yes: it's possible to balance it out in order to make use of its positive aspects for a variety of sets. I'm not fully convinced Seed Sower makes the mon feel like Eternatus (in a couple areas I can see it, like the "staying in" aspect, but overall), and I'm also not convinced that the areas it's helping us in are areas where we need help. I do think it offers enough that I wouldn't be mad at all if it's slated.

Is neutral coverage for third STAB / specific move boosting enough?

I was initially pretty skeptical, but the way to look at Strong Jaw or Mega Launcher is that the Dark move is the Dynamax Cannon, and the Grass move sort of becomes strong coverage, hitting mons like Great Tusk and Ting-Lu. Dark is a lot more clickable because of constrained resists relative to Grass or Poison. There are quite a few targets for Dark super effective hits, but I think you still want pretty reasonable power with these abilities, in which case neutral hits probably are enough to exert pressure against most targets with offensive sets. It's also worth noting that the tera multipler for "STAB" Dark would be 1.5 rather than 1.33 which is actually a pretty significant difference. These abilities are worth considering.

You can compare them pretty directly to Tinted Lens, since all of these basically have the same aim of better replicating Dynamax Cannon by granting a clickable STAB, which is very useful here. 3-attacks sets are pretty good with Jaw/Launcher, since you want poison STAB for mons like Hemo and Obliteryx, and you want grass STAB for mons like Ting-Lu and Tusk. I can see 2-attacks sets working reasonably well. Between Jaw and Launcher, I'd be more in favor of slating Jaw, since necessitating physical sets kind of makes it stand out and gives it its own lane. Poison Fang is a nice bonus, but the crux of the set is Crunch. Do fully defensive sets work with this? I'm not totally sure, but maybe? Overall would slightly lean toward slating one of these since they tackle the same problem as Tinted lens but create a very different end product.
---
Comments on some other abilities:

I'm not fully sold on Mold Breaker, but it's reasonable. I appreciate that it has kind of hybrid benefits and clarifies coverage routes. It feels pretty low-power to me, but it does make the mon feel more consistent. I definitely would prefer this to something like Neutralizing Gas which completely changes the identity and play of the mon. In terms of a slate spot, it has enough unique benefits that it probably deserves it.

Lingering Aroma: This can force some switches if you're able to capitalize on that in some way, but we already have pretty good tools for forcing switches if we want. Feels too situational to me, and because it requires tanking his, fatter sets are disproportionately benefitting.
Thick Fat: This focuses on defensive matchups we're otherwise losing, but it doesn't help us exert pressure while we're on the field which is a big area of concern for me. Set balance feels difficult with this one.
Levitate: I actually don't hate this, the idea being that it gives you greater item freedom since fat sets don't need to consider boots, offensive sets take less chip on switch-in etc. I could see this creating some flexibility. Being a poison that doesn't absorb tspikes is a little awkward but it's interesting.
Magician: Probably does very little for fatter sets which want to hold onto their item, and Life Orb sets don't benefit unless knocked off. The utility feels like a stretch. Not sure this really does much, and if it is doing much (i.e. we're running consumables most of the time), it's probably reducing set variety.
Tinted Lens: pretty neat

 

[Airola]

Hello, just been fascinated reading all through this, but prefacing this by saying I have no battling ability other than being able to trounce my daughter when she gets a little cocky with her all-legendary team each with 4 attacks, I just love reading this as a creative outlet, and figured I'd join in.

Taking onboard all of the notes above, does Stakeout do anything for us? If we're winning a match-up and an opponent wants to swap out, it's now in the catch-22 of whether it gets slapped with a boosted coverage, allowing CAP38 to still keep doing its thing. Is a thick Steel-type going to want to switch into say a Flamethrower?. Even if CAP38 doesn't guess the swap, it helps offset the resist. I think it may help out the stat array slightly, while also providing some counterplay

Triage gives it some strong move compression; but I think 50% Healing was talked about before that might be a cause for consideration with stat array, but, it does potentially provide some inordinate staying power if it can click perhaps a Drain-move and get healed AND chip before most things short of a sucker punch.

Super Luck is my final offering - although this does perhaps poll-jump a bit by inherently leaning to Phys due to the STAB high crit moves both being high in crit, it presents the opportunity for multiple sets needing to be scouted out, even before taking into consideration a 2nd ability - at the least high crit moves or perhaps set up +3Attacks. Having near guaranteed crits helps refer to it as a "mini-uber". If set up+3A is considered too broken, the lower scores of the attacks helps mitigate that, and there is coverage for Steel types also within the High Crit moves if relevant.

If anyone has any critiques of the suggestions (too broken? not strong enough for scope?) I'd love to learn. Ciao!

 

[quziel]

I think I'm gonna swap to Grassy Surge. Rilla boom existing really helps with any arguments that it pushes us too far into team support mode, as I strongly doubt we're getting uturn. Beyond that it's just way more reliable, still offers the same defensive and offensive benefits, etc.

 

[Guingil]

Hello, just been fascinated reading all through this, but prefacing this by saying I have no battling ability other than being able to trounce my daughter when she gets a little cocky with her all-legendary team each with 4 attacks, I just love reading this as a creative outlet, and figured I'd join in.

Taking onboard all of the notes above, does Stakeout do anything for us? If we're winning a match-up and an opponent wants to swap out, it's now in the catch-22 of whether it gets slapped with a boosted coverage, allowing CAP38 to still keep doing its thing. Is a thick Steel-type going to want to switch into say a Flamethrower?. Even if CAP38 doesn't guess the swap, it helps offset the resist. I think it may help out the stat array slightly, while also providing some counterplay

Triage gives it some strong move compression; but I think 50% Healing was talked about before that might be a cause for consideration with stat array, but, it does potentially provide some inordinate staying power if it can click perhaps a Drain-move and get healed AND chip before most things short of a sucker punch.

Super Luck is my final offering - although this does perhaps poll-jump a bit by inherently leaning to Phys due to the STAB high crit moves both being high in crit, it presents the opportunity for multiple sets needing to be scouted out, even before taking into consideration a 2nd ability - at the least high crit moves or perhaps set up +3Attacks. Having near guaranteed crits helps refer to it as a "mini-uber". If set up+3A is considered too broken, the lower scores of the attacks helps mitigate that, and there is coverage for Steel types also within the High Crit moves if relevant.

If anyone has any critiques of the suggestions (too broken? not strong enough for scope?) I'd love to learn. Ciao!

Hi, thanks for taking an interest in the project and our silly little discussions! (which are simultaneously also the most serious thing in the world, of course)

Stakeout I think synergizes really well with things that already want to force foes out, as you say. But from our assessment we don't think our offensive sets, especially 3-attacks, need that much help or incentive to be honest to win harder. If you are interested in a scenario where it works out a bit too well, to a degree that it can warp the entire process, check the previous process's ability stage ;)

The power of Triage is also dampened by us already being pretty fast already due to emulating Eternatus, running into the same issue of not helping the defensive sets do anything different against things that would otherwise check them. Revenankh, a slower Pokemon in CAP, uses it to frustrating effect tho.

Super Luck has actually been brought up before, along with things like Sniper, Merciless, and Sharpness to take advantage of critical hits. It is a valid strategy, and works with things like Focus Energy as "unconventional" setup. The non-setup routes for crits, like Flower Trick, are more relevant if we are going for flat power, and perhaps Super Luck with high critical hit ratio moves can work for the flat boost category. I will need to hear from others about it.

Hope you can trounce your daughter's Uber team with our mini-Uber once it's out, in somewhat ironic fashion I guess because the mega and mini roles are reversed IRL.

 

[Koleda]

Ability tier list time

Worth Slating

Seed Sower & Grassy Surge: I'm fine with one or the other getting slated, I'm fine with both getting slated. We not only get a slight power increase in our Grass moves but the healing is nice, the EQ resistance is cool but not that impactful since not that many mons run Earthquake as a STAB attack. I really don't think Grassy Surge is too defining, given that our opponents are also healing and the lack of EQ STAB mons thing I just mentioned, but am still fine with Seed Sower.

Lingering Aroma/Wandering Spirit: The Gliscor interaction is really funny, as is the Alomomola matchup, and I think it does enough without doing too much, worth a slate.

Flower Veil: When I first posted about Flower Veil I totally forgot about the stat drop immunity lol (in my defense it's an ability that is never run since the only mons with it can't make use of it at all). I don't think it changes too much though. It's not changing the Astrolotl matchup since we still die to Fire attacks regardless. It does stop burn but that only matters if we are physical which is not guaranteed. I still think it's worth slating over Limber though, since in my eyes it does not do that much more than Limber, and isn't really overbearing as some other suggested abilities.

Levitate: I like this more for the Spikes immunity than the Ground immunity, if we were weak to Ground this ability would absolutely be too much but we're not (plus we have STAB that is super effective against Grounds anyway) so this is cool.

I need to think more about

Filter/Solid Rock: Yeah I guess I can see the vision here, I just don't know if I like it as much as other abilities. I can be convinced though.

Not Worth Slating

Neutralizing Gas: I already talked about this one in a previous post.

Adaptability: I already talked about this one in a previous post.

Sharpness: I already talked about this one in a previous post.

Sheer Force: I didn't already talk about this one in a previous post but I dislike it for the same reasons I dislike Adaptability and Sharpness.

Limber: Inferior to Flower Veil, but I guess it doesn't make that big of a difference.

Tinted Lens: Feels too defining and kinda makes coverage redundant.

Mold Breaker: Gekokeso already said it better than I could've said myself, I don't feel like the interactions with it matter too much based on our typing and the fact that we are running coverage. Our ability should be low impact but not useless.

Corrosion: Feels like we would just become the Toxic mon (we could just not give it Toxic but at that point what are we doing here), it would be less inclined to run coverage as a result and is just very centralizing. In regards to mons in the meta who are immune to Toxic via ability, Garganacl and Clefable are both weak to our STABs.

Stakeout: If this was considered to be too strong to slate for Oblieryx then it is absolutely too strong to slate for a mon that we're trying to give a lower impact ability.

Triage: I know we are trying to be lower impact but this doesn't feel impactful enough, as it was decided in CA that we should be fast to emulate Eternatus, so idk how many matchups this is actually affecting.

Super Luck: I view this as kind of a worse Sharpness, in the sense that it forces us into physical and focuses on our damage output, except now we have to run either Focus Energy or Scope Lens to bring us to our fullest potential.

I tried looking to see if there were other potentially interesting abilities that have not been brought up in the thread, but not have interested me aside from Well Baked Body for making the Hemogoblin matchup really funny, but I don't actually support slating that as it is too high impact.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

The vast majority of mons we actually get to click moves against are going to resist grass, and in many cases quad resist it.

doesn't that mean that grass stab is effectively a dead slot and will always be dropped at the first opportunity unless we give it some sort of a direct boost? if we think it's important for this mon to not drop its stabs (and we do, considering that entire typings were written off last stage for that exact reason), and if what you're saying here is correct, then the only way to make grass stab even remotely worth ever running is to juice the hell out of it

 

[Explosion Badger]

Truth be told, the more I think about Flower Veil, the more I like it for both its strengths and its weaknesses. While you could argue that Limber already accomplishes the main purpose of Flower Veil while being far more understated (and I def think Limber should be on the list), full status and stat drop immunity makes it so much harder for opposing pokemon to stop our offensive momentum, or break through our defensive longevity. Some people have also brought up the interaction between the ability and Tera, and truth be told? I think its a cool interaction to explore, especially for our final gen 9 mon.

Mold Breaker also seems like a neat ability in terms of subtle application. Opening up ground coverage to the point of 38 only really having 2 hard walls seems helpful offensively while not being too intrusive, and Mold Breaker ignores so many other abilities that most other mons in the tier don't get the choice to, like Multiscale or Unaware(unaware specifically giving our limited setup a niche).

 

[viol and bass]

doesn't that mean that grass stab is effectively a dead slot and will always be dropped at the first opportunity unless we give it some sort of a direct boost? if we think it's important for this mon to not drop its stabs (and we do, considering that entire typings were written off last stage for that exact reason), and if what you're saying here is correct, then the only way to make grass stab even remotely worth ever running is to juice the hell out of it

Nah. My language was slightly hyperbolic, but your conclusion is also hyperbolic. Maybe there's a better way to put it: you or your team are, in most games, gonna have to break through some guys before you will get the opportunity to hit things neutrally or better with grass moves. The exception to this is something like Libra which might willingly sit on you sometimes, but primarily you're being answered by grass resists. The "breaking through some guys" phase of the game lasts longer, and once you're in the endgame, the grass moves are already probably hitting hard enough.

Based on the sample teams which I know are outdated (but I don't think this aspect has changed much), The average team has around 3 grass resists, many of which are quad-resists. These mons will typically be the first port of call, even with coverage in the mix. You have the means to break through most of them, but... not with grass moves. The opportunity to hit things neutrally or better with grass STAB is going to arise primarily late game. There'll be "pinning scenarios" earlier in the game when you can force a kill with a grass move sometimes, or times when it's kind of a midground option or when you're picking something off, but in the latter scenario, extra damage output on the grass move doesn't matter that much. But the point still stands. It's still important to have the move. If the opponent notices that you're lacking a grass move, their safe switch-ins expand a lot. My point is that Seed Sower doesn't really change this dynamic meaningfully. The grass move is either still thudding into resists early game (admittedly thudding a bit harder) or maybe cleaning up late game, at which point extra damage isn't necessarily needed. This is an extremely coverage-centric mon, much moreso than Eternatus, which is why small boosts to the STABs don't feel like the right approach to me. Anyway I hate forums back-and-forths (that's what Discord is for) but that's how I'm looking at it.

 

[SunshineFuture]

Okay, so this is going to be somewhat different from the average post in most CAP processes. At this point, I’ve been going in rhetorical circles on most of the abilities suggested in the thread. In all of my years as a CAP contributor, I cannot think of an Ability Stage which has left me more uncertain. This is not the fault of any one person or outcome of the process thus far, quite the opposite in fact. Instead, I think it boils down to this concept and the path we’ve taken (as in, deciding we wanted to make a CAP equivalent to Eternatus) making this Ability Stage particularly complicated to “solve”. While our typing probably is a partial contributor to this problem, this issue would likely have happened regardless of which type combo won out in the end. Basically, there’s a lot of moving parts to this CAP. We want to have multiple viable sets (something CAP frankly has not often successfully pulled off, particularly in recent years imo); we want an ability that benefits CAP38 but does not utterly define its existence in the metagame (another thing CAP is honestly not very good at imo, though it depends on the process. I sorta think Obliteryx with Opportunist is a rare counter-example here, actually); we’re trying to make CAP38 offensively threatening despite its STAB combo getting walled by much of the metagame; we want to also incentivize running defensive, 2A + utility sets as well; and perhaps more that I’m forgetting. The truth is, while as of now I have a couple of more concrete preferences, I am largely undecided as to what ability would work best for CAP38. I wasn’t sure if this post would be helpful to make, but our Ability Leader encouraged me to do so regardless, so here I am. I’m gonna try to outline where my head’s at right now on what we have proposed so far, but keep in mind that this could get kind of incoherent at points.

There’s only two abilities I think I can firmly say I absolutely do not want: Sheer Force and Neutralizing Gas. Sheer Force is an overall damage booster (which I’ve soured on but am not locked in opposition to, necessarily; we’ll get there in a bit), but much more importantly, this would essentially guarantee CAP38 runs Life Orb and nothing else, since given our STABs and likely coverage this will basically turn into power without any cost. Also, to the extent people want us on Special offense, losing out on Sludge Bomb poison is such a damn shame for this type combo. Just has too much working against it for me to enjoy. As for Neutralizing Gas, it just feels so absolutely polarizing and mon-defining that it comes across as too blatantly anti-concept to be allowed to live.

I will say that one of the few abilities I can actually hang my hat on is Flower Veil. While a status and stat drop immunity is certainly very meaningful, I feel like it also doesn’t construct the Pokémon’s identity so much as lay the groundwork for the stats and moves to do the talking, which imo is definitely a big part of what we’re aiming for here. In particular, while it does not have to be a physical attacker to be useful, Flower Veil’s value on this mon absolutely increases if it is, and CAP is a very SpD heavy meta right now. Basically, when I look at Flower Veil, I see something that allows CAP38 to be consistent at what it does; that doesn’t necessarily mean what CAP38 will do is strong, but that’s what the stats and moves are for in this process. CAP has a tendency imo to spend a good bit of the power budget in the ability stage, try to balance things out in stats, and then moves kind of sort of themselves out. I think this process is the kind which necessitates we flesh out the mon’s identity more in stats and moves than in ability without picking something essentially useless. Flower Veil strikes that balance for me, at least enough for me to feel happy it has a genuine shot. Slate it, please.

Like I said before, I’m not sure what would be better for CAP38 between Grassy Surge and Seed Sower. This being a fast mon does admittedly mean Seed Sower is more awkward than it first appears. Overall, I think it’s neat on paper to strengthen Grass moves (particularly if we are a special attacker), but I do also think there’s a couple of options in terms of moves that could do something similar without spending our ability on it. The extra healing is nice, but it healing our opponents too is pretty awkward as well, especially for the defensive set. I’ve kinda soured on Grassy Terrain as the play, but like I said, a lot feels up in the air for me, so who knows.

I kind of see the vision for Mold Breaker — making Ground coverage a more viable option by getting around Libra in some way is imo a very good way to improve this Pokémon’s overall coverage profile (Fire isn’t bad by any means but getting stuffed by every Poison-type in the tier feels awful ngl). There is also a handful of other small interactions (as well as ignoring Cresc Multiscale) that come with this too, which vary in usefulness depending on what our movepool looks like. My issue is, Libra feels like the main selling point and there’s a number of other ways we can accomplish making Ground coverage more optimal on CAP38. One of these options is honestly as simple as being a physical attacker, because as it turns out, getting a 3HKO against Libra with a physical Grass move is pretty trivial for a 3A Life Orb set.

252 Atk Life Orb Victreebel Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Equilibra: 172-203 (42.1 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

105 Attack, unchanged from the actual mon. And it still does it. Besides that, the only interaction I can feel confident will matter regardless of our movepool is ignoring Multiscale on Cresc, and imo that’s a little too hyper specific. While some of them would be realized, it’s just too unpredictable for me to have a lot of faith in it. I don’t want it on the slate.

Turning to Strong Jaw (which I much prefer over Mega Launcher for the aforementioned preference towards Physical as well as Poison Fang as an option), it is probably the directly offensive ability I drift towards most, but even then I have my reservations. I think offensive sets still have incentive to run 3A, especially if we accept Power Whip’s un-Etern like accuracy. But I also cannot be certain of that. It does also feel a tad bizarre to essentially turn Grass into a coverage move for Dark + Poison. So overall I want it slated but I’m still uncertain on it. I wouldn’t exactly hate it either though.

Corrosion I don’t have much to say beyond it feeling similarly warping to NGas but also being open to getting convinced it somehow doesn’t. Not sure why. I’d keep it off personally.

Last is Tinted Lens. I think it’s certainly a lot more valid here than on average and less broken on CAP38 than almost every other case it could’ve been. I do also think the idea of essentially making our damage floor (mostly) consistent across the board, considering it makes us less inherently prediction-reliant (very much a step towards feeling more like Etern imo) with our attacks. It also benefits defensive sets by making their two moves much harder to stuff out entirely (depending on our specific coverage option), which I think is also super cool. My main complaint is that compared to something like Strong Jaw (which relies on how Dark does SE damage to a number of important targets that Grass and Poison miss out on), Tinted Lens is a lot harder to gauge the power of on this mon without stats. Yes, your damage floor will be more consistent, but if it’s too low anyway, it won’t matter. Basically, I’m tentatively okay with Tinted Lens (though not my favorite rn), so long as it’s clear that we will definitely need very strong offenses and/or specific moves to take advantage of what Tinted Lens can do for CAP38.

Okay, that’s all I got. If I think of anything else to discuss last minute, I’ll post again I guess. Goodnight.