Well we are certainly not short of abilities, I thought I might a few suggestions on how to narrow down the list for those still deciding what to support.
1) Is the ability consistant? I think a good ability is one that is dependable and you can design both movesets and teams to take advantage of. I dont think any ability that goes off at random or even worse, capable of being manipulated by the opponent with standard teams should be considered.
2) Does the ability help the pokemon or your team? I have seen a few suggestions for negative abilites in the hope of offsetting it with amazing stats and moves. I think this is a really bad idea. For one I dont think people would really want to use a pokemon that would potentially be gimped the entire match, regardless of potential benefits. Not to mention it once again puts potential power in the hands of the opponent. If an ability is exploitable, they will take advantage of it.
3) Does it help or hurt the metagame. I see a lot potentially beneficial niches some of the abilites can add but there are a couple I think go to far and would just decrease diversity instead. We just want to shake up the metagame, not shatter it.
Quoting KR's post as it seems to have gotten lost but it's really useful.
The three tick boxes for Abilities to be considered:
Reliable
Beneficial
Metagame Oriented
Any Ability we choose should be considered in relation to these rules. I don't see how we can base a CAP around an unreliable Ability like Static when it only works 30% of the time.
For this reason I would want
Static, Flame Body, Effect Spore moved to
Unallowed. I also think that confusion is such a rare status that
Own Tempo and
Tangled Feet are too situational to be of use.
Also cyber, you have to be consistent in your decision making - don't have Poison Point Unallowed but then allow Static and Flame Body, they're basically variations on a theme.
The following abilities are currently Pending. They possibly require more discussion or a poll to dictate whether or not they'll be allowed.
Stall
Tinted Lens
Scrappy
Wonder Guard
Slow Start
Forecast
Snow Warning
For the abilities that need more discussion, please discuss. For those that need to wait for their respective polls, we shall wait. Everyone has something to contribute!
I figured I should quote this in order to directly respond.
Stall - a pretty useless Ability considering it is the same as giving CAP8 4 base speed stat. Why should we consider an Ability that can basically be achieved for free with the stat spread?
Tinted Lens - this is apretty powerful sweeping Ability and is very handy for CAP8 purposes as it can be added to pretty much any typing. Even a crappy offensive typing like Poison/Steel could be used with Tinted Lens and as such it deserves moving to Allowed. That Yanmega already has it is moot if it's hardly ever used - same for Air Lock on Rev. If you allow Air Lock you should Definitely allow Tinted Lens.
Scrappy - Yes it kills Stall but we could easy make it balanced - Bug/Fire? That way it could switch in and get rid of SR but would take 50% damage. That's a bit extreme but there are several ways to make this work. Allowed I say.
Wonder Guard - completely depends on the typing. I say as long as the type we choose has 5+ weaknesses that are relatively common, this is workable. We would have to be very careful with the stats and movepool but think how much we could learn about creating pokemon by doing something so extreme? Allowed please (at least until the typing poll is done)!
Slow Start - this should be Unallowed. It is a complete gimmick Ability considering it confers NO advantage on the pokemon. If we go by Kamen Rider's rules - it fails to be
Beneficial to CAP8 and therefore should be ruled out.
Forecast - Pretty difficult to make this viable. Decent option for a hail sweeper. If we chose a typing like Electric/Fighting that could benefit from Ice STAB this would be pretty decent. Only thing is it might not get used much since Forecast doesn't work in a Sandstorm and Hail and Rain aren't very common. Sun isn't used.
Snow Warning - This doesn't necessarily Have to be Ice - doesn't it confer auto immunity to Hail? If it does, then an Electric type could have STAB Thunderbolt and Snow Warning to have a pseudo-Ice STAB.
Allow - but the community wouldn't vote for it.