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CAP 9 CAP 9 - Concept Submissions
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I love this part. Here's my submission, may make some additions if I can think of any:
Name: Outperformer
Description: A Pokemon that appears to have little going for it, in the area of its stats, but carves out a niche for itself thanks to remarkable cohesion between all of its traits.
Justification: Some of the Pokemon currently used most in the metagame flourish because of an ability to perform far beyond paper expectations thanks to cohesion between movepool, stats, ability etc. Scizor is perhaps the best example of this. Building on this principle, this concept will enable us, through debate, to pin down exactly where the most important aspects of a Pokemon lie; In short, where its greater strengths should be placed. There are no CAPs to date that have poorly placed stats to the extent that they require this sort of niche, and thus we are likely to learn more about not only Pokemon building, but also the effects of predictability on a Pokemon as well.
Questions To Be Answered:
Name: Outperformer
Description: A Pokemon that appears to have little going for it, in the area of its stats, but carves out a niche for itself thanks to remarkable cohesion between all of its traits.
Justification: Some of the Pokemon currently used most in the metagame flourish because of an ability to perform far beyond paper expectations thanks to cohesion between movepool, stats, ability etc. Scizor is perhaps the best example of this. Building on this principle, this concept will enable us, through debate, to pin down exactly where the most important aspects of a Pokemon lie; In short, where its greater strengths should be placed. There are no CAPs to date that have poorly placed stats to the extent that they require this sort of niche, and thus we are likely to learn more about not only Pokemon building, but also the effects of predictability on a Pokemon as well.
Questions To Be Answered:
- How far can a Pokemon outperform its stats?
- How well can a Pokemon with a known moveset perform in today's metagame?
- How will the metagame itself adapt to accomodate such a threat? Will it make new strategies more viable, to accomodate a known threat?
I understand this is a similar concept to Nik S D, but I think my spin is enough different to warrant my submission.
Name - The Professional Gambler
Description - A pokemon who plays the numbers for the long-term instead of the short-term
Justification - Chance is almost always looked at as a bad thing, and something to be avoided. By making a pokemon who intends to lose the roll a few times in order to get the payoff for the times it wins; this CAP should alter the general view of chance involved in battling into a game of numbers and payoffs rather than dumb luck.
Questions To Be Answered:
Several pokemon come very close to using similar strategies: Blaziken has strong-critting moves but no defense or ability to make them worth while, Kingdra has better survivability and sniper, yet no crit-boosted moves to help it along. Drapion has the correct abilities and moves but poor typing. Togekiss and Jirachi make great use of paraflinch but are easily done away with by comon attack types. Very few pokemon ever even consider the freeze effect, or count on a secondary burn.
A pokemon tailored to these kinds of chances, and ensuring that they stick around long enough to accomplish their goal, would not only bring to life a currently downplayed part of the metagame, but also introduce a wide range of playstyles for offensive and defensive teams alike without being game breaking. Since switching on such a pokemon could prove dangerous for just about anyone, both players are forced to play the game of chance until this pokemon is removed from play.
Name - The Professional Gambler
Description - A pokemon who plays the numbers for the long-term instead of the short-term
Justification - Chance is almost always looked at as a bad thing, and something to be avoided. By making a pokemon who intends to lose the roll a few times in order to get the payoff for the times it wins; this CAP should alter the general view of chance involved in battling into a game of numbers and payoffs rather than dumb luck.
Questions To Be Answered:
- Can chance be viewed as a predictable element in the metagame.
- Is there a way to ensure the game is played enough times for the payoff to be positive?
- Can a pokemon based on chance survive in a metagame emphasizing reliablilty?
- Is there a way to make the payoff more grand, making lower accuracy moves and secondary effects statistically more efficient than their more reliable counterparts?
Several pokemon come very close to using similar strategies: Blaziken has strong-critting moves but no defense or ability to make them worth while, Kingdra has better survivability and sniper, yet no crit-boosted moves to help it along. Drapion has the correct abilities and moves but poor typing. Togekiss and Jirachi make great use of paraflinch but are easily done away with by comon attack types. Very few pokemon ever even consider the freeze effect, or count on a secondary burn.
A pokemon tailored to these kinds of chances, and ensuring that they stick around long enough to accomplish their goal, would not only bring to life a currently downplayed part of the metagame, but also introduce a wide range of playstyles for offensive and defensive teams alike without being game breaking. Since switching on such a pokemon could prove dangerous for just about anyone, both players are forced to play the game of chance until this pokemon is removed from play.
Name: Wild Card
Description A pokemon that has no safe switch in to all it's sets, but has a safe switch in to each individual set. It can only break stall through versatility, not power.
Justification There is nothing that really has multiple viable sets that have different counter. There is salamence, that has man viable and use sets. However, they don't really have different switch ins. Now of course you wouldn't want to switch a scizor into a specsmence fire blast, but you wouldn't want to switch scizor into salamence at all. Most of the commonly used sets have the same switch ins/ counters. Luke would work similar to this, but the only set anyone uses is SD. To summarize,
There is nothing that is really like this. Lucario can be like this but any set other then SD is considered gimmicky. This would really be a lot better them average the first turn, but only a little bit better or just average the following turns.
Description A pokemon that has no safe switch in to all it's sets, but has a safe switch in to each individual set. It can only break stall through versatility, not power.
Justification There is nothing that really has multiple viable sets that have different counter. There is salamence, that has man viable and use sets. However, they don't really have different switch ins. Now of course you wouldn't want to switch a scizor into a specsmence fire blast, but you wouldn't want to switch scizor into salamence at all. Most of the commonly used sets have the same switch ins/ counters. Luke would work similar to this, but the only set anyone uses is SD. To summarize,
- It would be unpredictable which set it would run.
- It would hit hard enough to kill something should it make a bad switch in.
- It would have multiple viable sets but none of them would be the best of their kind
- Would the sets other then the predominate set be considered gimmicky?
- Why aren't sets like specsluke that counter the common switch ins used very much?
- What would be it's common switch ins?
- How would a it do against stall?
There is nothing that is really like this. Lucario can be like this but any set other then SD is considered gimmicky. This would really be a lot better them average the first turn, but only a little bit better or just average the following turns.
Outperformer: That's really pretty much the same deal as Low BST, which has already been posted--a Pokemon's stats suck, and it makes up for that through it's other aspects. I don't really like either, as it's already completely obvious that we can make a Pokemon suck in a particular aspect such as BST or stat distribution, and it can still turn out quite viable due to a Pokemon being much more than just it's stats, and thus there isn't much to actually learn there that we don't already know or really experiment with.
I would say I like this one more than Low BST as it seemingly puts another option on the table in addition to just going with a poor stat total, but a Low BST would be where that would go nonetheless, as if a Pokemon simply doesn't have the stats for using a move or strategy, it's not pulling it off (ex. Rampardos isn't sweeping any time soon, despite it's sky-high attack stat. It just doesn't have the speed and is too fragile to set up reliably, and priority destroys it regardless).
And if we're going to just give it an actual item or ability to get around that, that defeats the point, as though it's apparent stats suck, it's effective-stats are much better than that (as Pikachu's and Marowak's base stats are basically irrelevant when considering Light Ball and Thick Club--they're effective offensive stats are sweeper level nonetheless, the same way Azumarill's and Medicham's are due to their abilities), thus making it nothing more than a "sweeper in disguise," which would basically defeat the entire point of the concept--giving the Pokemon the hindrance of poor stats and it succeeding nonetheless due to its other qualities. Making a Pokemon a terrible Pokemon at tearing through teams (ex. Thick Fat Azumarill... which isn't used, since it's a terrible option), except when it is (ex. Huge Power Azy) isn't really a concept, as the latter option will be the one that's always used anyway, making the other abilities or options just a waste to make the Pokemon seem terrible, even though we know it's really not, making the supposedly limiting factors irrelevant, as they're just ignored or gotten around anyway, as if they never existed.
Back to the point though, regardless of how the Pokemon appears terrible and how it makes up for it, it's basically still a Pokemon that has bad stats that makes up for it through it's other aspects, which comes out as being too similar to low BST to me. It does leave a bit more room option, but the gist of it is still a bit too close to Low BST's for my liking.
High BST: Pretty much the same exact thing as Massive Stats, Micro Movepool.
Wild Card: Pretty much stuff like Salamance and Lucario in a nutshell. Not much to really learn here. And you can't really use the argument that "nobody really uses Specs Lucario or anything, so it doesn't count" as who's to say that all of the sets of this thing will actually get used, and it won't just settle down on something like a SD set as well? You can't force people to actually use all of it's sets, the same way you can't force people to use all of Lucario's sets evenly, despite them all being there. In order to be different from it though, or rather, fulfill the concept better than it does, you'd have to, which you can't really do or have any way of making sure of. Thus, not really seeing the point in going with this over something else.
I would say I like this one more than Low BST as it seemingly puts another option on the table in addition to just going with a poor stat total, but a Low BST would be where that would go nonetheless, as if a Pokemon simply doesn't have the stats for using a move or strategy, it's not pulling it off (ex. Rampardos isn't sweeping any time soon, despite it's sky-high attack stat. It just doesn't have the speed and is too fragile to set up reliably, and priority destroys it regardless).
And if we're going to just give it an actual item or ability to get around that, that defeats the point, as though it's apparent stats suck, it's effective-stats are much better than that (as Pikachu's and Marowak's base stats are basically irrelevant when considering Light Ball and Thick Club--they're effective offensive stats are sweeper level nonetheless, the same way Azumarill's and Medicham's are due to their abilities), thus making it nothing more than a "sweeper in disguise," which would basically defeat the entire point of the concept--giving the Pokemon the hindrance of poor stats and it succeeding nonetheless due to its other qualities. Making a Pokemon a terrible Pokemon at tearing through teams (ex. Thick Fat Azumarill... which isn't used, since it's a terrible option), except when it is (ex. Huge Power Azy) isn't really a concept, as the latter option will be the one that's always used anyway, making the other abilities or options just a waste to make the Pokemon seem terrible, even though we know it's really not, making the supposedly limiting factors irrelevant, as they're just ignored or gotten around anyway, as if they never existed.
Back to the point though, regardless of how the Pokemon appears terrible and how it makes up for it, it's basically still a Pokemon that has bad stats that makes up for it through it's other aspects, which comes out as being too similar to low BST to me. It does leave a bit more room option, but the gist of it is still a bit too close to Low BST's for my liking.
High BST: Pretty much the same exact thing as Massive Stats, Micro Movepool.
Wild Card: Pretty much stuff like Salamance and Lucario in a nutshell. Not much to really learn here. And you can't really use the argument that "nobody really uses Specs Lucario or anything, so it doesn't count" as who's to say that all of the sets of this thing will actually get used, and it won't just settle down on something like a SD set as well? You can't force people to actually use all of it's sets, the same way you can't force people to use all of Lucario's sets evenly, despite them all being there. In order to be different from it though, or rather, fulfill the concept better than it does, you'd have to, which you can't really do or have any way of making sure of. Thus, not really seeing the point in going with this over something else.
I think this is an interesting idea.
Of course, The pokemon would have to have very high base stats and a movepool that excludes moves with high base power.
In other words, it would have to be a pokemon that, if it had 'competitive' moves, would be considered Uber.
I really can't understand the reason behind a lot of concept posted. Priority abuser, low BST, tank... these things already exist in OU. And we are not talking about some obscure competitors like Dragonite (sorry dnite fans). Things like Scizor and Suicune are all over the place, and they proved to be effective for a long time.
Really, aside from the first concepts posted (I really liked cyberzero's one), the later ones look just like a result of lack of originality. I may seem harsh, but IMO, there's no fun to create something which already exist (ok, not equal, but still very similar).
Really, aside from the first concepts posted (I really liked cyberzero's one), the later ones look just like a result of lack of originality. I may seem harsh, but IMO, there's no fun to create something which already exist (ok, not equal, but still very similar).
I thought this is obvious, but such a concept could be easily accomplished by giving the Pokemon an ability that makes it have a 100% chance of Critically hitting. Or an ability that reverses the chance to Critical Hit. Or having a Pokemon-exclusive item that does one or the other. Or whatever - I didn't want to mention anything because the original post doesn't allow me to. I don't see how this is any more restricting than any other concept? Of course, every concept will end up restricting our CAP somehow.
Just saw this, and was wondering, wouldn't that solution be illegal, at least as far as CAP is concerned? I mean, we currently honor even some more "minor" points of Game Freak's Pokemon thus far like how Pokemon's level-up lists are constructed and the average number of egg moves Pokemon actually get in game and stuff. So wouldn't something like that, which completely ignores the max critical hit rate of 50% that Game Freak programmed in (which sticks even if you try to push it a stage higher) and has stuck with be just as illegal as submitting a movepool with like 20-some egg moves, or for another (perhaps better) example, creating a Pokemon that can actually boost it's stats to a stage of +10 or something? I know it's just an example, and going more in depth on such a thing really isn't suitable for things at this stage (or perhaps it would be better for a PR thread, even if the concept does win), but it got my curiosity going on what of Game Freak's mechanics we're trying to honor here and which ones not so much, and I really wanted to comment on that as a result.
Name: a mixed Pest
General Description: a Pokemon that can be a pest to ALL pokemon but not in one single set
Justification:Either if its offensiveor defensive this pokemon will always find a way to be a nuisance
Questions to be Answered:
How would a stall team re act to this pokemon?
Would Stat Effecting Attacks/abilities hurt this pokemon or will it continue to be a pest?
Which Pokemon will be the most effected by?
Explanation:
the normal pest would be taken down due to its typing or Defensive stats and even HP.Or its just defensive Pokemon that can't do anything to hurt you besides if you have roar and have SR up.
1.)Have a good defensive ability
2.) A good typing combo , like Fire/Electric , ice/Electric, Ghost/Fire or Defensive combos as normal/fighting ,dark/psychic or water/bug
3.)moves like mean look,baton pass, destiny bond or Suicide Moves, or taunt , fake out, thunder wave , confuse ray or will-o-wisp, encore moves like that, but with moves like shadow ball/ice beam/thunderbolt/fire blast will helps its offensive moves out
edit: 4.) Its stats won't be Like Over 90 for its offensive
Its
Thanks for reading :D
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don't quote this :
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Explanation: A good Sunny Day abuser would be fresh and fun. Typing could be just about anything, although Fire and/or Grass are the most obvious. Water typing might be interesting to help it stop Heatran from becoming even more of a beast once the Sun goes up, and ruining the fun for this pokemon. Chlorophyll would be an easy way to make a good sweeper, but Solar Power doesn't get the love it should, and might be an interesting option. There are lots of nice abilities that could help this thing do its job. I think fiery art designs are always cool and I can imagine this pokemon having lots of colorful fire effects, if we make it part Fire.
The explanation has everything illegal in a concept, which is perfectly fine. The "colorful fire effects", the suggested abilities and types are all in the explanation.
General Description: a Pokemon that can be a pest to ALL pokemon but not in one single set
Justification:Either if its offensiveor defensive this pokemon will always find a way to be a nuisance
Questions to be Answered:
How would a stall team re act to this pokemon?
Would Stat Effecting Attacks/abilities hurt this pokemon or will it continue to be a pest?
Which Pokemon will be the most effected by?
Explanation:
the normal pest would be taken down due to its typing or Defensive stats and even HP.Or its just defensive Pokemon that can't do anything to hurt you besides if you have roar and have SR up.
1.)Have a good defensive ability
2.) A good typing combo , like Fire/Electric , ice/Electric, Ghost/Fire or Defensive combos as normal/fighting ,dark/psychic or water/bug
3.)moves like mean look,baton pass, destiny bond or Suicide Moves, or taunt , fake out, thunder wave , confuse ray or will-o-wisp, encore moves like that, but with moves like shadow ball/ice beam/thunderbolt/fire blast will helps its offensive moves out
edit: 4.) Its stats won't be Like Over 90 for its offensive
Its
Thanks for reading :D
===========
don't quote this :
==========
Explanation: A good Sunny Day abuser would be fresh and fun. Typing could be just about anything, although Fire and/or Grass are the most obvious. Water typing might be interesting to help it stop Heatran from becoming even more of a beast once the Sun goes up, and ruining the fun for this pokemon. Chlorophyll would be an easy way to make a good sweeper, but Solar Power doesn't get the love it should, and might be an interesting option. There are lots of nice abilities that could help this thing do its job. I think fiery art designs are always cool and I can imagine this pokemon having lots of colorful fire effects, if we make it part Fire.
The explanation has everything illegal in a concept, which is perfectly fine. The "colorful fire effects", the suggested abilities and types are all in the explanation.
A Mixed Pest: One Pokemon can't do everything, period. They only have four moves, and thus they can't be annoying to everything all at once. It can try, but it will wind up with just a huge 4 moveslot-syndrome. It might have a particular set that will be able to annoy any particular Pokemon, but it won't be able to be a bother to everything with just one. Pokemon just doesn't work that way. Due to this, it winds up being extremely similar to Wild Card, as being a Pokemon that can annoy any particular Pokemon by using a particular set+item+ability combination, but due to only being able to go with a limited number of its choices, every set will be able to be handled well by something. Perhaps it's a bit more open than Wild Card due to the different way of putting it, but it still seems a bit too similar to it to me.
There's a good point there, seeing as the main thing about criticals is that they bypass defenses and hit for double damage. Perhaps the concept of critical hitting is a bit narrow. The job of a critical hit, securing a kill (though not reliably) can be done through other means.
I know that Jirachi and Togekiss are already good serence gracers; my concept basically wanted to take that, and emphasize the secondary effects more. A LOT more. Also, sorry for replying so late.
I'm not so sure as to how much more you can emphasize a secondary part of battling such as hax as much you can with Jirachi and Togekiss without making it too gimmicky and serving no purpose. Just like with Kitsunoh's scout concept, if a role of a scout is emphasized entirely, then there wouldn't be enough substance to make a decent pokemon.
The fact still stands that there have been pokemon fit for haxing, however.
The fact still stands that there have been pokemon fit for haxing, however.
So what you mean is a pokemon to abuse the secondary effects of moves not used by either Jirachi or Togekiss? If so, that would be saying you want to abuse Psychic's SpD drop, Rock Smash/Crush Claw's Def drop etc?
Nice thought, but you can't go much better than 60% flinch from our two favourite Serene Gracers!
Name: Trickier Than Thou
General Description: A Pokemon that acts as a great insurance against common Trick users, and can take advantage of commonly Tricked items or of opponents that often use Trick.
Justification: Trick is an incredibly powerful move in the metagame, and single-handedly makes several styles of play less effective than they would otherwise be. The standard stall team for one suffers a lot against Tricked Choice items of any kind, as do many slower mono-attacking tanks such as CroCune, Bulk Up Revenankh, CursePert, CurseLax, CurseTar, etc. Currently there are very few Pokemon that can be called "a check against Trick", and all the Pokemon that are immune to the move are either Uber (Arceus) or NU (Gastrodon, Muk, Swalot). I believe that this concept satisfies all three of the learning outcomes:
Questions to be Answered:
Explanation: I remember when Trick became a tutor move for many Pokemon with Platinum's arrival in September 08, there was quite an outcry about how this "would destroy stall forever!" and "would make the metagame hyper offensive!". While these predictions weren't entirely accurate, Trick was and remains an incredibly effective move. Having used stall considerably and then recently having played around with choice teams on the ladder, I've really come to appreciate how devastating a move it can be. I think it is at its most dangerous in tournament-style matches, where the unpredictability of its common users gives the player a massive edge over most common styles of play. For some hard proof of its effectiveness, I'll direct you to several prestigious teams - Atticus' Team StrongBOTS, the team that beat the Smogon Frontier, featured two Trick users; and Earthworm / Jumpluff's World Cup winning Team Sugarless GiRL featured a Trick user as well. The top players use Trick and they do well with it, so its impact on the metagame can hardly be called trivial.
This concept will hopefully push the metagame in a new direction, and if done right we can find out valuable lessons about why Trick really is so effective, and what would happen if something was added to the metagame to change this. Although the Trick-countering Sticky Hold users are NU, I think making an OU-worthy Pokemon with that ability is too easy a way to deal with Trick. We can really investigate other ways in which Trick's prevalence can be taken advantage of, with possibilities such as: a Klutz Pokemon that couldn't care less about what item it was given; a Pokemon that even when Choiced can be an asset to a team by using moves such as Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Outrage, U-turn, or Baton Pass, in short moves that don't require you to switch attacks; a Pokemon that can reliably run items that would cripple common Trick users, such as Iron Ball, Lagging Tail, Flame Orb, Toxic Orb, and Black Sludge; a Pokemon that is so versatile that it can make uses of any Choice item it may find itself with (possibly a wide movepool that can be boosted with either specs or band, or be used to revenge a wide range of threats with the boost from Scarf). And at the same time, having a stat spread that would make it useable on the teams that suffer most from Trick (more defensively based ones), but not exclusively so (e.g. Hippowdon).
I know this concept doesn't sound nearly as glamorous as some of the other ones, but I think it has the potential for great scope while retaining a central defining idea that will see the CAP through to the end. It places next to no restraints on art or typing, meaning we can go with whatever direction we want with the CAP as long as we fulfill the concept. The enjoyment gained from specifically tailoring a Pokemon to beat certain threats, such as during Arghonaut's CAP, can still be gained from this one as we tailor our CAP to beat the myriad Trick users. I also genuinely believe it would both have a positive effect on the metagame and help us learn more about it and this often used but little analyzed (slash countered) play.
General Description: A Pokemon that acts as a great insurance against common Trick users, and can take advantage of commonly Tricked items or of opponents that often use Trick.
Justification: Trick is an incredibly powerful move in the metagame, and single-handedly makes several styles of play less effective than they would otherwise be. The standard stall team for one suffers a lot against Tricked Choice items of any kind, as do many slower mono-attacking tanks such as CroCune, Bulk Up Revenankh, CursePert, CurseLax, CurseTar, etc. Currently there are very few Pokemon that can be called "a check against Trick", and all the Pokemon that are immune to the move are either Uber (Arceus) or NU (Gastrodon, Muk, Swalot). I believe that this concept satisfies all three of the learning outcomes:
- Introduces a new niche in the metagame - current Trick checks are not viable in OU)
- Allows us to learn more about the metagame - would the common users of Trick still be able to use it as such an effective weapon against stall if they knew they could potentially disadvantage themselves by Tricking into this Pokemon? Would Choice variants of these Pokemon remain as common as they currently are when the chance of Trick being a liability is a lot higher? If Trick loses out on its effectiveness, what other moves could these Pokemon use in its place?)
- Has a positive effect on the metagame - this can never be promised, but it would definitely increase the viability of the styles of play that Trick currently inhibits, thus increasing metagame diversity.
Questions to be Answered:
- What are the common users of Trick and how can our Pokemon be made to be able to stand up to them?
- What are the common items that are Tricked and how can our Pokemon be made to take advantage of them?
- What teams / Pokemon are most damaged by Trick in the current metagame, and how can our Pokemon be made to work well with them?
Explanation: I remember when Trick became a tutor move for many Pokemon with Platinum's arrival in September 08, there was quite an outcry about how this "would destroy stall forever!" and "would make the metagame hyper offensive!". While these predictions weren't entirely accurate, Trick was and remains an incredibly effective move. Having used stall considerably and then recently having played around with choice teams on the ladder, I've really come to appreciate how devastating a move it can be. I think it is at its most dangerous in tournament-style matches, where the unpredictability of its common users gives the player a massive edge over most common styles of play. For some hard proof of its effectiveness, I'll direct you to several prestigious teams - Atticus' Team StrongBOTS, the team that beat the Smogon Frontier, featured two Trick users; and Earthworm / Jumpluff's World Cup winning Team Sugarless GiRL featured a Trick user as well. The top players use Trick and they do well with it, so its impact on the metagame can hardly be called trivial.
This concept will hopefully push the metagame in a new direction, and if done right we can find out valuable lessons about why Trick really is so effective, and what would happen if something was added to the metagame to change this. Although the Trick-countering Sticky Hold users are NU, I think making an OU-worthy Pokemon with that ability is too easy a way to deal with Trick. We can really investigate other ways in which Trick's prevalence can be taken advantage of, with possibilities such as: a Klutz Pokemon that couldn't care less about what item it was given; a Pokemon that even when Choiced can be an asset to a team by using moves such as Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Outrage, U-turn, or Baton Pass, in short moves that don't require you to switch attacks; a Pokemon that can reliably run items that would cripple common Trick users, such as Iron Ball, Lagging Tail, Flame Orb, Toxic Orb, and Black Sludge; a Pokemon that is so versatile that it can make uses of any Choice item it may find itself with (possibly a wide movepool that can be boosted with either specs or band, or be used to revenge a wide range of threats with the boost from Scarf). And at the same time, having a stat spread that would make it useable on the teams that suffer most from Trick (more defensively based ones), but not exclusively so (e.g. Hippowdon).
I know this concept doesn't sound nearly as glamorous as some of the other ones, but I think it has the potential for great scope while retaining a central defining idea that will see the CAP through to the end. It places next to no restraints on art or typing, meaning we can go with whatever direction we want with the CAP as long as we fulfill the concept. The enjoyment gained from specifically tailoring a Pokemon to beat certain threats, such as during Arghonaut's CAP, can still be gained from this one as we tailor our CAP to beat the myriad Trick users. I also genuinely believe it would both have a positive effect on the metagame and help us learn more about it and this often used but little analyzed (slash countered) play.
Oooh, a lovely concept by Legacy Raider+
Yes, Trick (as well as a certain other move previously mentioned) is quite a poser for many strategies and with a pokemon that can provide a safeguard of some sort, we indeed can learn about the metagame.
EDIT: We could always make a beefed up Swalot or Lopunny but for creative reasons, probably not. I think the concept presupposes Trick has succeeded, so outspeeding is a dead end. Getting this concept to life will be quite tricky indeed. (Pun completely intended)
Yes, Trick (as well as a certain other move previously mentioned) is quite a poser for many strategies and with a pokemon that can provide a safeguard of some sort, we indeed can learn about the metagame.
EDIT: We could always make a beefed up Swalot or Lopunny but for creative reasons, probably not. I think the concept presupposes Trick has succeeded, so outspeeding is a dead end. Getting this concept to life will be quite tricky indeed. (Pun completely intended)
Basically, yes. Among others.
Yeah, pretty much this. If we make secondary effect-rates like flinching more prominent, we'd have to balance it out by making it hit weaker compared to Pokemon like Togekiss, meaning even with the better flinch-rate and such, due to being weaker, it would really wind up being questionable if it's worth using at them. And if we ignore that, keeping the power regardless of the fact that we're bumping up the flinch rate, while making it something that one would actually want to use over Togekiss/Jirachi, we wind up getting something like Shaymin-S, which, even though it doesn't have too great of defenses or defensive-typing, due to it's power and the amount of hax on it's side, was something people weren't exactly happy with in OU. Thus, Jirachi and Togekiss are pretty much the ideal fulfillment of the concept, and I don't think we'd do too much better than them--we'd either end up going too low and conservative, creating something like Dunsparce with Super Serene Grace, or go too far and create something like Skymin. Otherwise, we'd really be recreating Pokemon like Togekiss and Jirachi essentially, so I'm not too sure about this idea. There's a happy medium when it comes to the power of secondary effects, and Togekiss and Jirachi are pretty much sitting at it.
Of the concepts I've seen, there's a few that stick out atm.
First, Sgtwoodsy's berry abuser: seems like a new and interesting concept.
High BST/BSR/Low power move abuser/etc.: While this is often submitted, we have yet to do this. I'd like to see an extreme case here, as long as we make sure we keep it different from other High BSTs (like slaking, for example).
Pyromaniac's concept is absolutely brilliant. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier.
I'm not hugely in favor of the Trick concept, I think trick can be pretty much dealt with by other methods. A pokemon devoted to stopping it is in no way necessary.
First, Sgtwoodsy's berry abuser: seems like a new and interesting concept.
High BST/BSR/Low power move abuser/etc.: While this is often submitted, we have yet to do this. I'd like to see an extreme case here, as long as we make sure we keep it different from other High BSTs (like slaking, for example).
Pyromaniac's concept is absolutely brilliant. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier.
I'm not hugely in favor of the Trick concept, I think trick can be pretty much dealt with by other methods. A pokemon devoted to stopping it is in no way necessary.
Actually, Trick is not as easily dealt with as you think. You need to take into account that the tricked pokemon keep the swapped items and that the user of Trick probably gains a very beneficial item (such as leftovers) because they'd use Trick against support pokemon.
Maybe a pokemon devoted to stopping Trick isn't necessary, but neither are many of the concepts given. CAP is about learning about the metagame not about governing the way pokemon battles are.
I think (Crippled giant/High BST/pluck or bug bite abuser/low power move user) could be effectively blended into one CAP due to the consistancies in their concepts.
Pluck/Bug bite = (base 60) = low power moves
High BST + Low power moves = Crippled giant
Pluck/Bug bite = (base 60) = low power moves
High BST + Low power moves = Crippled giant
I think the main flaw in Trick's concept is that Trick is not used in every match, unlike something like Stealth Rock. I could definitely see in playtesting a bunch of people using said CAP with the niche of beating Trick users, so people would aim to both a) not use Trick users and b) use Trick counter mon. From there, it could possibly become dead weight, even before we learn anything. The most we could get out of a playtest that runs like that is "Trick is not common when CAP 9 is the most common thing out there".
While it is an interesting concept, I'm not sure if a concept tailored towards countering a move is best for this project. While still common, Trick isn't everywhere.
While it is an interesting concept, I'm not sure if a concept tailored towards countering a move is best for this project. While still common, Trick isn't everywhere.
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