CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

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reachzero

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Magic Bounce is ridiculous for this concept, simply because the first responsibility of every Magic Bounce Pokemon is not to die, and Belly Drum pushes you in exactly the opposite direction. Magic Bounce has such immense utility for a team just by its user being alive that giving a Pokemon Magic Bounce is tantamount to defining its concept as hazard denial. This is especially true for a Pokemon with great defensive typing.

What we should be looking for in an ability is the potential to set up in more situations and become more difficult to revenge kill. I am particularly concerned that for a Steel/Flying type, Magnezone, especially Choice Scarf Magnezone, can shut CAP6 down so completely as to make it nearly unviable without Shed Shell. As such, I think the best abilities for this CAP will be abilities that mitigate the ability of faster Electric types to destroy this Pokemon--any Electric-nullifying ability would be good to some extend, but Motor Drive is the cream of the crop, since it would give CAP6 clear-cut opportunities to set up, immunity to Thunder Wave (very useful against Ferrothorn especially), and would make CAP6 much harder to revenge kill without giving it a generic speed boost that is universally useful. Volt Absorb is only slightly less useful, because while it could potentially give CAP6 a second shot at setting up if it was forced out once, it does nothing for CAP6 on its first switch-in, and does nothing to help prevent revenge killing.

Sand Rush wouldn't be my first choice, mostly because I feel that Rain with Electric immunity works better with Steel/Flying than Sand does by weakening Fire coverage moves, but it does help us keep CAP6 from being Magnezone bait, and it would help us avoid revenge killing, both of which are laudable goals. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it is an acceptable one that would help the concept.

I cannot overstate how dangerous it would be to have Scarf Magnezone take out CAP6 100% of the time. If this is the case, everyone will simply use Magnezone, and the CAP will never, ever be able to get off the ground.
 
I am against Magic Bounce, because most posts supporting Magic Bounce mention nerfing other parts of CAP6. And as Korski said:

Suddenly, the conversation shifts from "how do we make a good Belly Drum user" to "how do we balance Magic Bounce," which is in and of itself a distraction from our original concept, one that is (supposedly) about not nerfing the movepool down to just STAB attacks and Belly Drum.
I'll throw my support behind Gluttony and Unburden. Gluttony lets us use Salac Berry without leaving us with only 2 attack move slots (Which in turn lets us mess with the speed stat to outspeed certain Scarfers), and Unburden does the same thing, but lets us run Sitrus Berry instead, and gives us more leg room for messing with the speed stat.

tl;dr (If you actually didn't read my tiny post you are lazy as hell) : Yes Unburden, Ehh Gluttony, No Magic Bounce
 
What about Flash Fire?
It makes us a lot harder to burn, AND it removes a weakness that we have (fire). Plus it gives us some play to include a fire coverage move (preferably something weak like flame charge to discourage choice sets)
 
In defense of Regenerator:

Regenerator

Not a fan. This doesn't help CAP 6 with anything. Nada. You're telling me that not only are you going to Belly Drum once, but you think you'd be able to pull off Belly Drum twice, or even three times in the same match against the same opponent? What you have to consider is if you failed your first Belly Drum, you have to switch out a minimum two times to regain all of that lost health. What this means is that you have to switch CAP 6 in safely, without taking a scratch, two times, while your opponent can take complete advantage of you as you flail in desperation to do so. Steel/Flying is a decent defensive typing, it is, but it gets hit neutrally by so many things and even resisted hits by powerhouses like Salamence and Scizor are still going to hit you very hard without Skarmory-esque defenses, something CAP 6 is far from getting. Regenerator is an awful ability for these reasons and it doesn't help CAP 6 sweep with Belly Drum or set up Belly Drum in any way.
I disagree. In football, a decent passing game makes the running game easier. If they know you'll throw the ball every time, then they can much more easily shut you down. I think that's analogous to CAP 6. By making switching better, we make the Drum better, simply by incentivizing the double-switch and luring the Magnezone or Skarmory or whatever CAP's #1 counter is. The idea isn't to Drum, realize you're in danger of being walled/revenged, and make a hasty exit (as even with Regenerator, weak hits + hazards + 50% will wear you down too quickly), but rather to use Regenerator to scout for a proper opportunity to Drum instead of being a gun with one bullet. We still can give this thing Skarmory-esque defenses, too, if it's conducive to the concept.

Regenerator:

The above poster has made a good case for Regenerator until you consider that the argument is basically that Regnerator CAP won't use Belly Drum, which goes against the concept itself. When it comes to using Regenerator because then the CAP gets multiple opportunities at setting up—it's a fair point, but why should a Pokemon that can't set up the first time be able to set up any more often afterwards?
I think making a pokemon that unfailingly uses exclusively Belly Drum on the first turn it is out (or sub+BD) would be boring and against the concept itself. We can make its movepool as narrow as we want! We could make its base Attack is 80 or give it exclusively low base power attacking moves. I'm certainly confident that we can make Belly Drum the best thing it has to do under certain conditions, and certainly its end goal, without being the only thing it can viably do. Its setup opportunities would certainly still be limited - it's still at 37.5% after Drum and Rocks no matter what you do (beyond Sitrus), and I'm not convinced by your "why should a pokemon be allowed multiple set up attempts?" argument. Why not?

That's all I'll say directly on the matter. I certainly think that other abilities would be fun and viable, but nothing that gives us quite the creative (and competitive!) freedom of Regenerator. The rest of this is kind of drivel.

I think that Belly Drum has really given us an opportunity to get creative. It'd be fun to make a Pokemon that makes HP a much more dynamic value by draining it with Belly Drum and using a combination of moves (Recover, Roost), ability (Regenerator), item (Leftovers, Sitrus Berry, Lum Berry), and team support (Healing Wish, Wish, Aromatherapy/Heal Bell) to restore its HP/rid it of status. We're using HP as a resource - why not explore ways of replenishing that resource? Or we could take a different tack and make a defensive behemoth who threatens little before the Drum, almost reminiscent of transforming threats like Meleoetta-P or Zen Mode Darmanitan. Regenerator + Substitute allows for a little bit of play as to deciding when to make pinch berries activate, and is one of those "generically good" abilities that I think everyone is afraid is too nonspecific and boring. I think that with the choice to use Belly Drum, we could use a little "generically good" to avoid limiting the scope of our future discussions, and beyond that I think it would make for an interesting gameplay to boot.
 
I am against Magic Bounce, because most posts supporting Magic Bounce mention nerfing other parts of CAP6. And as Korski said:
I don't think it's fair to single out Magic Bounce as the only ability where we have to make sure we nerf other parts of the CAP. This is going to happen with a lot of the other abilities being suggested, such as Intimidate (we don't want a defensive pivot like Landorus-T), Unburden (we have to nerf Speed to make sure we don't outpace what is supposed to outpace us), and Regenerator (same thing as Intimidate, we don't want to turn this into a pivot Pokémon). But even so, we really aren't nerfing anything out of the ordinary. Why would we consider giving CAP 6 utility moves, such as recovery, entry hazards, and status moves when our concept is to ensure Belly Drum is the best set it can possibly run? Forget about Magic Bounce for a second. As far as I know, CAP 6 isn't going to be given these good support moves because it goes completely against the concept at hand and can cause support sets to function better than what is intended. We don't want a Skarmory 2.0, we want a viable Belly Drummer in the OU metagame. Magic Bounce is a really good ability, yes, but I'm not sure if people are just overreacting over it or I'm just overlooking the potential it has to turn us away from Belly Drumming, but at the moment, it is one of the top abilities out there to ensure CAP 6 can actually set up Belly Drum. If we are giving CAP 6 tools to sweep after Belly Drumming, but no tools to actually set it up in the first place, then what's the point? As of now, there is a very underwhelming supply of setup opportunities for this CAP, and in my mind, Magic Bounce remedies this without taking us off the right path.

I disagree. In football, a decent passing game makes the running game easier. If they know you'll throw the ball every time, then they can much more easily shut you down. I think that's analogous to CAP 6. By making switching better, we make the Drum better, simply by incentivizing the double-switch and luring the Magnezone or Skarmory or whatever CAP's #1 counter is. The idea isn't to Drum, realize you're in danger of being walled/revenged, and make a hasty exit (as even with Regenerator, weak hits + hazards + 50% will wear you down too quickly), but rather to use Regenerator to scout for a proper opportunity to Drum instead of being a gun with one bullet. We still can give this thing Skarmory-esque defenses, too, if it's conducive to the concept.
I'm still not entirely convinced Regenerator actually helps us with anything. If the primary reason for its support is to scout the opposition's CAP 6 answers, that's cool and all, but CAP 6's checks and counters are specific enough that scouting isn't a huge deal. After all, CAP 6 is going to presumably be Belly Drumming late-game when you and your opponent both know the ins and outs of your teams, so you will most likely know his Jolteon is Choice Scarfed or his Conkeldurr has Mach Punch. You do have 5 other Pokémon on your team to lure Pokémon such as these out, so wasting an ability on CAP 6 to do this for you is a waste. Furthermore, say you do successfully scout your opponent with Regenerator. What now? Will you be able to pull off Belly Drum at a healthy HP level or without being crippled with status or phazed? The chances of that are very low. Thus, Regenerator isn't going to do anything to help CAP 6 set up/sweep which is what we should be primarily addressing, not scouting for checks and counters. Also, Skarmory-esque defenses with Regenerator spells trouble.
 

alexwolf

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What we should be looking for in an ability is the potential to set up in more situations and become more difficult to revenge kill. I am particularly concerned that for a Steel/Flying type, Magnezone, especially Choice Scarf Magnezone, can shut CAP6 down so completely as to make it nearly unviable without Shed Shell. As such, I think the best abilities for this CAP will be abilities that mitigate the ability of faster Electric types to destroy this Pokemon--any Electric-nullifying ability would be good to some extend, but Motor Drive is the cream of the crop, since it would give CAP6 clear-cut opportunities to set up, immunity to Thunder Wave (very useful against Ferrothorn especially), and would make CAP6 much harder to revenge kill without giving it a generic speed boost that is universally useful. Volt Absorb is only slightly less useful, because while it could potentially give CAP6 a second shot at setting up if it was forced out once, it does nothing for CAP6 on its first switch-in, and does nothing to help prevent revenge killing.

Sand Rush wouldn't be my first choice, mostly because I feel that Rain with Electric immunity works better with Steel/Flying than Sand does by weakening Fire coverage moves, but it does help us keep CAP6 from being Magnezone bait, and it would help us avoid revenge killing, both of which are laudable goals. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it is an acceptable one that would help the concept.

I cannot overstate how dangerous it would be to have Scarf Magnezone take out CAP6 100% of the time. If this is the case, everyone will simply use Magnezone, and the CAP will never, ever be able to get off the ground.
Mach Punch or 115 Speed or more are both options to avoid getting revenge killed by Choice Scarf Magnezone. Not to mention that even with Motor Drive or Volt Absorb Magnezone can still easily KO the CAP at 50% with Hidden Power Fire. Generally, you are making Motor Drive seem much more useful than it actually is, by generally talking about Electric moves and not checking out how the situations with Pokemon that actually carry Electric-moves will play out. I already made a list of Pokemon that carry Electric-moves in OU and half of those Pokemon can do 50% or more to the CAP even without Electric moves while even some of the defensive Pokemon can and will use other moves to cripple the CAP outside of Thunder Wave. The only Pokemon that we are guaranteed to setup thanks to Motor Drive are Blissey, Forretress (which we could easily before too), and Jolteon. Add Pokemon such as T-Wave Celebi, Thunder SpD Jirachi, and T-Wave Ferrothorn and you have a total of 6 Pokemon that Motor Drive helps us setup against, 3 of which are not even sure (Celebi can have Perish Song, Jirachi Body Slam, and Ferro Protect + Leech Seed). Definitely not the cream of the crop, especially when compared with much less situational abilities that also help setup such as Water Absorb and Intimidate.

tl;dr

There are other ways to deal with Scarf Magnezone even if we don't go with Motor Drive or Volt Absorb so there is no reason to be paranoid about it.
 
For advocates of Magic Bounce:

Wouldn't Soundproof be a worthy compromise? BellyCap wouldn't be overpowered and fall into a defensive niche, but it would also greatly assist set up.

I've experimented with Belly Drum+Swift Swim Poliwrath in OU and it absolutely demolishes opposing rain teams. I found the best way to get it to set up was to Baton Pass a Substitute from Celebi, as the two have near perfect defensive synergy. Keldeo eat your heart out.

Hypothetically, if someone were to set up BellyCap via Subpassing, Soundproof would be very beneficial, as it would become immune to Roar and Perish Song, as well as resisting Dragon Tail.

It would still be vulnerable to Whirlwind, however, so it wouldn't be too OP. And depending on the coverage moves we give it, it could still be checked.
 

Bughouse

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Alternatively, if we're looking to avoid Magnezone pressure, but don't want 115+ Speed (which I don't and I think most people don't) or Mach Punch (since it picks on Heatran too, which we DON'T want according to our threatlist), we can accomplish a decent avoidance of Magnezone with abilities.

I'm actually pretty intrigued by Sand Rush, particularly if combined with Motor Drive.

Basically what this combination would mean is a way to ease set-up with the Electric-Absorption ability, especially on Rain teams, where Scarf Magnezone can't even HP Fire for the kill. At the same time, Sand Rush would provide CAP 6 with an excellent ability that would potentially tie some CAP sets to Sand, a first as far as I can tell (except for the odd CM Stratagem...). Under Sand, CAP 6 would outrun exactly the same things Unburden runs through, without tying up our item slot and while making the speed reliant on keeping Sand up, which I think is a good thing. It just makes the meta more flexible, both in how CAP 6 can be used and in how it can be dealt with. CAP 6 is hardly tied only to Sand though, since Motor Drive works excellently on a Rain team.

It's also an opportunity to make a CAP 6 that DOESN'T have blistering speed. For example, Sand Rush CAP 6 at 73 Speed (even with max+ investment) is still outsped by ScarfMie, but basically nothing else. At the same time, that 73 Speed CAP 6 with a +1 from Motor Drive still outpaces the entire unboosted OU meta.

Oh and Scarf Magnezone doesn't need to be beaten with Mach Punch. If we outspeed it by Sand Rush or are strong against it because of Motor Drive, we can deal with it via a non-priority coverage move. Fire comes to mind, so that we still lose to Heatran, for example.
 

alexwolf

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Alternatively, if we're looking to avoid Magnezone pressure, but don't want 115+ Speed (which I don't and I think most people don't) or Mach Punch (since it picks on Heatran too, which we DON'T want according to our threatlist), we can accomplish a decent avoidance of Magnezone with abilities.
Mach Punch actually only picks Scarf Heatran as slower variants are hit harder by Acrobatics anyway. Also, if we want Magnezone to remain as a check to the CAP, we can give to the CAP just enough Atk to OHKO Scarf Magnezone after SR (meaning an attack between 90 and 105, depending on nature) but not enough to OHKO more bulkier spreads, meaning that the Magnezone user can still check the CAP if it wants to. Also, we can do the same for Heatran, have enough Atk to OHKO Scarf variants but not max HP sets, so it remains as a check.
 
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wow so much has happened since i was last here! i tried to catch up before posting, just wanted to throw a few ideas out there, but first: Magic bounce is a mistake. Fuzznip & Alexwolf, your replies don't (as far as I could tell, sorry if I missed something) rebut what I at least think is Reachzero's most compelling point - that the point of a magic bouncer is just to stay alive. Just by being alive you get so much utility out of a MBer. From a risk/reward standpoint, a MB CAP6 is way better at supporting teammates who don't like hazards (Volc, Dnite) than it is at belly sweeping. It is hard to imagine that even with just protect/toxic/sub and its offensive moves it won't be able to serve as a pretty decent MBer, and yeah magnezone can trap it, but espeon is arguably more trappable (pursuit, arena trap, shadow tag all work on it) and its just fine. Magic Bouce also really does change the focus of the discussion, as Korski said, away from Belly Drum.

Absorbing abilities: Ok I don't love Motor Drive or Volt Absorb, but I think they are fine for the reasons reachzero and srk1214 and Pwnemon have all listed. As for water absorbing abilities - what about Dry Skin? I think its better than Water Absorb, since dry skin, like motor drive, does something for this CAP after its switched in, and makes running it rain teams, weatherless and sand teams (as an answer to rain) more appealing that it would otherwise be. Unlike all the previous immunity abilities Dry Skin doesn't require the Cap switch in on a particular move, and puts more control on the CAP user's side - its just a more reliable ability. Of course dry skin doesn't remove a weakness and does nothing for magnezone... so I get that its probably overall less useful than motor drive

Intimidate and Regenerator run this risk of making this cap a bulky pivot... I honestly think that they are worse both from a competitive standpoint and a concept standpoint than giving this CAP another immunity. Especially with a typing that is almost immune to hazard damage.

Finally, I have an oddball ability that is frankly almost certainly too powerful and wrong for most of the reasons Magic Bounce is wrong but which is, I think, less powerful and more on-concept than Magic Bounce and which has been like an itch in my head all day and that is... Prankster. Prankster's problems are that it makes all utility moves awesome so it will really limit the discussion of non-attacking moves, and take the focus of especially that discussion away from Belly Drum and to Prankster. But will it harm the other discussion like 2ndary ability, attacking movepool, stats? I'm not so sure. It would make giving this CAP certain moves like recovery, taunt, and baton pass impossible/risky. But but but what attracts me to this ability is Thunderos-i's old nasty plot set (yes I realize that its t-wave/taunt set was the real one), and thinking of this CAP as having a similar set. You can always get a sub or a drum off with prankster (though phazing means you aren't guaranteed both). That means Prankster really does help you set-up in a lot of situations where getting a sub is crucial, or you need to beat faster taunter. Probably Prankster is a bad idea, but just curious if anyone else has thoughts on it.
 
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Dry Skin is just asking for insanity. While Thunder hits at an Electric Weakness, rain neuters Fire, and makes CAP6 yet another toy for Rain teams. (though the guilty pleasure of both abilities, taking a Thunder just for the Motor Drive boost does sound fun.)

I may be missing something, but I don't understand why Regenerator is in play at all. It neutralizes hazards, fair enough, which we avoid 3/4 of due to sheer typing. That and the fact that Regenerator by definition is an ability useful to a pivot, something we are expressly trying for to make. If you need to switch out to replenish health by switching out of a threat after already setting up a Belly Drum, then we've already failed at some point in the concept.

Magic Bounce I think CAN work, but the issue is that it puts the decisions in the hands of the community instead of a few people. If it was a small group balancing out the issues, I'd be all for it, but I don't know if so many cooks in the kitchen could agree on what needs to be done. As Fuzznip said, I think the concept itself takes care of it's own problems... IF we all agree that's the direction to go, but I don't see the process realistically being that smooth. I'd like to be proven wrong though, as the ability does appear appealing.

I can see the arguments for turning into a pivot very easily though. Whether it's the best set or not, Toxic/Protect/Substitute WILL be used in the playtest, (movepool limits won't help much, as most Pokemon gain these moves) and it will only be then when we discover if another set outweighs it.

I've already said that I also like Motor Drive, and others have pointed out why, so there's not much more to add.
 
The way I see Motor Drive working is that it would primarily exist for the Electric immunity. This sounds kind of obvious, but when people see Motor Drive, there's a prevailing sense that the user is supposed to grab the boost with it and try to sweep. The problem with that approach is that Motor Drive's Speed boost is an opponent-dependent effect. On the other hand, we could also use this opponent-dependent effect to our advantage. If we go with Motor Drive, I think that the punishment for activating it should be that CAP 6 outruns [almost] every Scarf user, while otherwise being prone to being revenge killed by most of them.

I agree with Fuzznip's reservations with Regenerator. If we're talking about either helping CAP 6 set up or helping CAP 6 sweep after setting up, Regenerator actually does neither. Not only that, but Regenerator's the kind of ability that turned Tornadus Therian, a Pokemon that has trouble switching into Breloom despite resistances, into a very effective hit-and-run attacker. Maybe CAP 6 won't have the immediate power that Tornadus Therian has, but the only way I see this going right now is away from the concept.

I would like to encourage supporters of Magic Bounce and Unburden to address points made by Pwnemon and others. Unburden wasn't getting very good discussion at first, but it had a lot of support. However, now that we've gotten to the really pressing issues with it, it seems a lot less justified than it was at first. I find the similar Sand Rush suggestion a bit misguided because it doesn't seem to actually address the main problem with Unburden. I also worry about Magic Bounce, primarily due to what reachzero pointed out: it would give CAP 6 a potentially concept-distracting niche just by being there. I still see it potentially working out, but Magic Bounce is still a pretty big part of a Pokemon's identity.

I hope there's more discussion on these abilities, as well as possibly abilities like Intimidate and Soundproof. Intimidate is kind of cool because it creates scenarios in which CAP 6 can both set up on and be revenge killed by priority users.
 

Birkal

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If the primary reason for its support is to scout the opposition's CAP 6 answers, that's cool and all, but CAP 6's checks and counters are specific enough that scouting isn't a huge deal. After all, CAP 6 is going to presumably be Belly Drumming late-game when you and your opponent both know the ins and outs of your teams, so you will most likely know his Jolteon is Choice Scarfed or his Conkeldurr has Mach Punch. You do have 5 other Pokémon on your team to lure Pokémon such as these out, so wasting an ability on CAP 6 to do this for you is a waste. Furthermore, say you do successfully scout your opponent with Regenerator. What now? Will you be able to pull off Belly Drum at a healthy HP level or without being crippled with status or phazed? The chances of that are very low. Thus, Regenerator isn't going to do anything to help CAP 6 set up/sweep which is what we should be primarily addressing, not scouting for checks and counters. Also, Skarmory-esque defenses with Regenerator spells trouble.
This post makes numerous assumptions about CAP 6 which I think is unhealthy for our discussion (blazing fast speed, high defenses, and predictability of counters). CAP 6 does not need to exhibit either of the former two traits, while the latter is untrue; capefeather mentioned specific stuff like "Choice Scizor locked into Bullet Punch" on our threats list. The assumption that scouting is unimportant for a Belly Drummer is pretty far off the point as well, in my opinion. If you're sacrificing what is essentially 1/12 of your team with one move, you want to know as much information as possible in order to pull off the move.

When it comes to set up moves, Belly Drum gives the absolute worst momentum, especially if the Pokemon faints before doing anything. Consider Dragonite using Dragon Dance. If you DD and the opponent switches to Rotom-W, it makes good sense to switch out in fear of Scarf HP Ice, especially if Multiscale is broken. Note in that situation, however, that the only loss you take is that of losing momentum; Dragonite can switch in later and still go for the sweep. CAP 6 will not have that luxury unless we give it some assistance. If it uses Belly Drum while the opponent switches in a surefire counter, you've lost terrible momentum there, and there is no way of gaining it back. Why would CAP 6 even want to use Belly Drum in that situation? Sure, you can give the excuse of waiting until endgame to release CAP 6, but now you're essentially fighting five versus six until CAP 6 is forced to use its "spectacular" move.

Belly Drum is a bad, risky move and will result in a serious loss of momentum if used incorrectly. This is essentially why Belly Drum isn't seen in OU at all. Even if it had better users, the move is simply to risky to be truly viable. In a metagame dominated with switching and predictions, it doesn't pay to run a high risk for high reward. The abundance of Stealth Rock is a testament to this concept; players are most successful when they can swing momentum and calculate their victory. Belly Drum is the epitome of a single-shot move, and we rarely see that kind of strategy used in Overused, and that's for a reason. A loss of momentum from a one trick pony is detrimental.

The only way I can envision us patching this significant loss of momentum is with Regenerator. I've been plugging for this ability ever since we decided on Belly Drum, simply because it fits so well with the move and how to make it relevant in Overused. It allows us multiple attempts at a strategy, rather than giving CAP 6 only one shot to shine. You can read all about why Regenerator is a great fix in some of the other posts above me. What strikes me is that it is such an optimal match to Belly Drum. In a metagame dominated by switching, counter switching, U-turn, and Volt Switch, it's imperative that we think about how Belly Drum relates to momentum. Regenerator keeps momentum alive, even after the Belly Drum is first executed. Fuzznip mentioned above that our checks will be switching in on us, and that's actually a good thing. Using the sheer power of Belly Drum to scare the opponent in to bringing out their check is a scouting move. We can make it an effective scouting move with Regenerator, which allows CAP 6 to dart back to safety, lurking to Belly Drum again later in the match when conditions are more suitable.
 

This post makes numerous assumptions about CAP 6 which I think is unhealthy for our discussion (blazing fast speed, high defenses, and predictability of counters). CAP 6 does not need to exhibit either of the former two traits, while the latter is untrue; capefeather mentioned specific stuff like "Choice Scizor locked into Bullet Punch" on our threats list. The assumption that scouting is unimportant for a Belly Drummer is pretty far off the point as well, in my opinion. If you're sacrificing what is essentially 1/12 of your team with one move, you want to know as much information as possible in order to pull off the move.

When it comes to set up moves, Belly Drum gives the absolute worst momentum, especially if the Pokemon faints before doing anything. Consider Dragonite using Dragon Dance. If you DD and the opponent switches to Rotom-W, it makes good sense to switch out in fear of Scarf HP Ice, especially if Multiscale is broken. Note in that situation, however, that the only loss you take is that of losing momentum; Dragonite can switch in later and still go for the sweep. CAP 6 will not have that luxury unless we give it some assistance. If it uses Belly Drum while the opponent switches in a surefire counter, you've lost terrible momentum there, and there is no way of gaining it back. Why would CAP 6 even want to use Belly Drum in that situation? Sure, you can give the excuse of waiting until endgame to release CAP 6, but now you're essentially fighting five versus six until CAP 6 is forced to use its "spectacular" move.

Belly Drum is a bad, risky move and will result in a serious loss of momentum if used incorrectly. This is essentially why Belly Drum isn't seen in OU at all. Even if it had better users, the move is simply to risky to be truly viable. In a metagame dominated with switching and predictions, it doesn't pay to run a high risk for high reward. The abundance of Stealth Rock is a testament to this concept; players are most successful when they can swing momentum and calculate their victory. Belly Drum is the epitome of a single-shot move, and we rarely see that kind of strategy used in Overused, and that's for a reason. A loss of momentum from a one trick pony is detrimental.

The only way I can envision us patching this significant loss of momentum is with Regenerator. I've been plugging for this ability ever since we decided on Belly Drum, simply because it fits so well with the move and how to make it relevant in Overused. It allows us multiple attempts at a strategy, rather than giving CAP 6 only one shot to shine. You can read all about why Regenerator is a great fix in some of the other posts above me. What strikes me is that it is such an optimal match to Belly Drum. In a metagame dominated by switching, counter switching, U-turn, and Volt Switch, it's imperative that we think about how Belly Drum relates to momentum. Regenerator keeps momentum alive, even after the Belly Drum is first executed. Fuzznip mentioned above that our checks will be switching in on us, and that's actually a good thing. Using the sheer power of Belly Drum to scare the opponent in to bringing out their check is a scouting move. We can make it an effective scouting move with Regenerator, which allows CAP 6 to dart back to safety, lurking to Belly Drum again later in the match when conditions are more suitable.
I think assuming that not much scouting will be needed for this CAP is perfectly reasonable. Considering it has only two weaknesses and is intended to use one move, counters/checks won't be hard to predict. Also, while Regenerator would help in allowing this CAP to set up multiple times, I feel that because Belly Drum is so hard to set up with, this CAP will need all the help it can get in executing a successful set up at all. If each attempt to set up is a failure, Regenerator won't help. I'd like to show support for Intimidate, as it could neuter a possible threat to this CAP's chance to successfully Belly Drum while also allowing for the possibility of simply using the CAP as a means of neutering a predicted switch. (Although not so much that it becomes a bulky pivot)
 

Bughouse

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Birkal, I just wanted to provide some quick math about Regenerator:

CAP 6 switches in at some point to the match, let's say after a Latios Scarf Draco Meteor took out a teammate. It takes damage from Stealth Rock for 1/8 HP gone.

Latios switches out as you Belly Drum, now 5/8 HP gone, leaving you with 3/8 (37.5%). Latios user switched out to a counter/check of some sort. Maybe a Conkeldurr or something. Whatever it is. Scared, and happy that you "scouted," you switch out. You regenerate 1/3 of your health. This brings you up to 17/24 (~71%).

You switch back in later in the match, take Stealth Rock again, bringing you down to 7/12 HP (~58%). At this point, yes, you do technically have enough to Belly Drum again, but realistically, no you don't. Not a single thing in OU will fail to do 8% except for a choiced Ground move.

So, no, you can't Belly Drum twice in a match, unless you switch out and back in twice or more. One Regenerator is not going to save you. And honestly, needing to switch in, immediately back out just to make CAP 6 not useless is a serious momentum killer in its own right.

I find the whole Regenerator thing incredibly impractical in terms of sweeping with Belly Drum.



(And yes I know Sitrus Berry is a thing. It's a thing for all sets. It's not any better or worse on Regenerator CAP 6.)
 

This post makes numerous assumptions about CAP 6 which I think is unhealthy for our discussion (blazing fast speed, high defenses, and predictability of counters). CAP 6 does not need to exhibit either of the former two traits, while the latter is untrue; capefeather mentioned specific stuff like "Choice Scizor locked into Bullet Punch" on our threats list. The assumption that scouting is unimportant for a Belly Drummer is pretty far off the point as well, in my opinion. If you're sacrificing what is essentially 1/12 of your team with one move, you want to know as much information as possible in order to pull off the move.

When it comes to set up moves, Belly Drum gives the absolute worst momentum, especially if the Pokemon faints before doing anything. Consider Dragonite using Dragon Dance. If you DD and the opponent switches to Rotom-W, it makes good sense to switch out in fear of Scarf HP Ice, especially if Multiscale is broken. Note in that situation, however, that the only loss you take is that of losing momentum; Dragonite can switch in later and still go for the sweep. CAP 6 will not have that luxury unless we give it some assistance. If it uses Belly Drum while the opponent switches in a surefire counter, you've lost terrible momentum there, and there is no way of gaining it back. Why would CAP 6 even want to use Belly Drum in that situation? Sure, you can give the excuse of waiting until endgame to release CAP 6, but now you're essentially fighting five versus six until CAP 6 is forced to use its "spectacular" move.

Belly Drum is a bad, risky move and will result in a serious loss of momentum if used incorrectly. This is essentially why Belly Drum isn't seen in OU at all. Even if it had better users, the move is simply to risky to be truly viable. In a metagame dominated with switching and predictions, it doesn't pay to run a high risk for high reward. The abundance of Stealth Rock is a testament to this concept; players are most successful when they can swing momentum and calculate their victory. Belly Drum is the epitome of a single-shot move, and we rarely see that kind of strategy used in Overused, and that's for a reason. A loss of momentum from a one trick pony is detrimental.

The only way I can envision us patching this significant loss of momentum is with Regenerator. I've been plugging for this ability ever since we decided on Belly Drum, simply because it fits so well with the move and how to make it relevant in Overused. It allows us multiple attempts at a strategy, rather than giving CAP 6 only one shot to shine. You can read all about why Regenerator is a great fix in some of the other posts above me. What strikes me is that it is such an optimal match to Belly Drum. In a metagame dominated by switching, counter switching, U-turn, and Volt Switch, it's imperative that we think about how Belly Drum relates to momentum. Regenerator keeps momentum alive, even after the Belly Drum is first executed. Fuzznip mentioned above that our checks will be switching in on us, and that's actually a good thing. Using the sheer power of Belly Drum to scare the opponent in to bringing out their check is a scouting move. We can make it an effective scouting move with Regenerator, which allows CAP 6 to dart back to safety, lurking to Belly Drum again later in the match when conditions are more suitable.
I don't really know where you got the assumption of blazing fast speed and high defenses in my post because I never intended to assume those, but that doesn't matter right now.

Honestly, losing momentum is the least drawback we have to worry about with this concept and attempting to remedy this rather than far important matters, such as setting up in the first place, isn't helping CAP 6 accomplish its task. Belly Drum is naturally an all-or-nothing ability, but that's not what makes it bad. It's the fact that it's so difficult to pull off and actually take advantage of, as we've seen with the near nonexistence of such sweeper. Regenerator isn't going to help our case here because all it simply does is allow you scout for CAP 6 checks and counters. That's all. It doesn't help with anything other than that. Belly Drumming mid-game to locate your opposition's checks and counters and then being forced to get CAP 6 in again and switch out again to go back to full HP so you can actually attempt a Belly Drum sweep is an awful playstyle the way I see it. Like I said in my previous post, you have teammates available to scout for you and CAP 6's checks and counters are not impossible to spot. If you see Breloom, then you know it's going to have Mach Punch to revenge kill you (unless it sports a SubSeed set or something as you play along). If you see Skarmory or Heatran, they are clear issues that need to be dealt with beforehand. Also, the fact that "you're essentially fighting five versus six until CAP 6 is forced to use it's "spectacular" move" is not necessarily a bad thing, this is how it generally works with many late-game sweepers. People will keep Lucario or Volcarona waiting in the wings until their checks/counters have been hampered enough for them to switch in at an opportune moment and attempt to sweep. It's not going to be any different with CAP 6. When it's ready to go and the circumstances are set in place (I'm not trying to say that you're guaranteed this), it will go.

Regenerator can give us multiple attempts at Belly Drumming, but this isn't necessary. One striking question is how are you going to set up in the first place and against what? Scroll through the OU threat list and you'll conclude that there is almost nothing you can freely Belly Drum against without either dying, being crippled, or being phazed. This is what we need to focus our attention to. This is the biggest problem Belly Drum users have and what CAP 6 will have in OU, not this "losing momentum" nonsense. Belly Drum is an all-eggs-in-one-basket move and we shouldn't try to break that, we simply have to provide CAP 6 with the necessary attributes to make it a one-hit wonder.
 

alexwolf

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Two things about Regenerator.... First, Regenerator will never help us setup twice, never (at least not without huge bulk). It just won't happen and if you want to know why just see srk's last post. If you want to scout the opponent's answer to the CAP then you can just use an attacking move and not waste half of your life. You will still scout the opponent's answer, see their EV spread, item, and possibly moves. And second, Regenerator is actually very useful to scout the answers of the opponent to the CAP. What kind of damage will you heal back if you are not using Belly Drum to scout early game you ask? SR and resisted weak hits to get in are what Regenerator will allow us to heal. With Regenerator the CAP can switch into many Pokemon such as Landorus-T, T-Wave less Celebi, Gliscor, Breloom, Scizor, Scarf Garchomp, and SubToxic Gliscor. We wanted the CAP to not be 100% useless before setting up remember? This is what Regenerator does. It provides the CAP with some much needed pre-BD utility that however shouldn't outperform its post-BD performance and we can do this provided we are careful on later stages. Regenerator will allow the CAP to actually use this sweet typing to its advantage early-game by acting as a pivot to soft resisted hits, or even stronger hits in rare occasions, and to scout the sets of its checks and counters. Positioning is a very important factor and Regenerator helps immensely with this. The more switch-in chances we get the easier it will be to find the right opportunity to set up.

As of now three are my favorite abilities and the most interesting to go with, Magic Bounce, Intimidate, and Regenerator. In terms of which of them is more difficult to prevent from derailing the CAP from its concept (BD sweeper) it goes like this: Magic Bounce > Regenerator > Intimidate. This means that Magic Bounce will be the most difficult ability to contain and Intimidate the least difficult one, with Regenerator in the middle. However, i think that we can manage without derailing from the concept with all three abilities and this is why i like all of them. However, Intimidate is definitely my first option because it helps us find setup chances against offensive teams, which means that it helps the CAP threaten offensive teams, something that i wanted from the beginning. Then both Regenerator and Magic Bounce are very interesting options that will make for a very fun CAP ride and tbh i like them both equally. Magic Bounce eases setup against defensive pivots and defensive Pokemon while Regenerator allows the CAP to become a soft-pivot early game, scout its own checks, and have better positioning in the course of the game.
 
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DetroitLolcat

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Since the threat list has been revised, it seems that the Pokemon we threaten almost all have one thing in common: they are Physical attackers that cannot defeat us with their main STAB. Pwnemon seems to want to focus on abilities that want us to set up easier rather than abilities that facilitate sweeping, so let's see what abilities accomplish both this goal while falling in line with the Threats Discussion:

Thick Fat is a good ability. Although it's not necessarily the most compliant with the Threats Discussion, it really helps us set up on Dragons that are locked into Fire moves, Water Pokemon locked into Ice moves (and out of Rain, plenty of Water Pokemon that are!), and Electric Pokemon locked into Hidden Power Ice. It prevents Mamoswine from revenge killing us unless we're at a stupid low percentage, and we can even set up on Mamoswine provided we switch into an Earthquake or come in off a KO.

Motor Drive, Lightningrod, Volt Absorb. I'm not convinced of these three abilities or any Electric-immunity granting ability. Although it might look nice on the type-resistance chart, we have to realize that most Electric Pokemon carry great coverage moves and a Volt Switch immunity isn't all it's cracked up to be. Although this does give us a 100% setup opportunity in Forretress and choice-locked Electric moves, the former is already a Pokemon we can set up on in most situations and the latter is not common. Furthermore, opponents will not use Choice-locked Electric moves often against a team with CAP6 for fear of losing the game to a Belly Drum boosted CAP6. Abilities that grant an Electric immunity can be played around well, especially because every Pokemon that commonly uses an Electric move besides Jolteon can deal a ton of damage with coverage options, especially if our HP has already been reduced because of Belly Drum. capefeather is right that Motor Drive would exist for the Electric immunity, not the Speed boost. However, I question how much an Electric immunity would work towards the concept.

Intimidate is another good ability for this CAP, however, I'm more concerned about whether this Pokemon would want to use Belly Drum if it was a Steel Pokemon with Intimidate. Although we can obviously work around this "generic goodstuffs" ability, there is the possibility that this Pokemon would be used to counter Dragons rather than use Belly Drum effectively. That's not enough to discount this ability and there are plenty of ways to successfully use Intimidate. But if this Pokemon had too good Physical defense, it could make Intimidate a liability to the concept. I like this ability, but I don't love it.
 
To me the point of Regenerator is for situations where you are trying to abuse your immunities or resistances to switch in and end up taking a coverage move instead. Because neither you nor your opponent have perfect prediction, Regenerator offers us the possibility of being persistent with CAP6: we can scout our opportunities to switch in and actually be there to take advantage when they happen. We did say that this should be a pokemon that can turn 6-5 into 5-0, right? I think being able to actually show its face in the midgame would help enormously with that, which is what Regenerator does.

I'd like to see a little more said about why an issue absolutely must be solved in this stage before I'll accept "not solving that issue" as an iron-clad rebuttal to an ability. First of all, there are moves than can fix things like status, phasing, and higher speed. Second, looking at the list of Belly Drum users reveals that they all have a heaping pile of reasons for sucking, or at least sucking at Belly Drum. They suck due to shitty stats, shitty typings, and shitty movepools, not because they don't have 1-0 weaknesses with multiple immunities, or immunity to all status and phazing. They are practically revenge-killable by the majority of the tier, not by 3-4 mons. I'm not saying they don't have a long way to go to be usable, but because so many people are using the fact that "belly drum is never used" in their arguments, we should at least be honest about how bad the current users are. I mean, for how sure we are that Belly Drum is a generally inferior boosting move, how many of its users can run successful sets with one of the superior boosting moves in OU? It's still 0 isn't it? If Belly Drum is so bad why do we also routinely assume our attack/bulk/speed will be mediocre in response to it?

I don't mean to use this as an argument against any specific abilities so much as a rebuttal to the idea that Regenerator is bad because it is not those specific abilities.

Edit: When did we decide that BD + 3 attacks is a forgone conclusion, I don't see why this need be the case. It again feels like assumptions about the direction this project has to go are being used as counters to directions that this project could go. It's not exactly crazy to think that brute force is an option for a Belly Drummer is it?
 
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Stratos

Banned deucer.
Okay, guys, discussion has been winding down. I'm not going to give a specific x hour warning right now, and may never, but I just would like you to be aware that I have spoken with the mods and we agree that the arguments are beginning to become rehashed. With that in mind, I'd like to see more thoughts on other abilities than the already-definitely-slated Regenerator, Motor Drive, Magic Bounce, Unburden. In particular, I want to hear about Intimidate, Water Absorb, and Sand Rush, three abilities which seem to have garnered some support but been largely overlooked in favor of swapping notes about Motor Drive. However, don't let that discourage you from bringing up new abilities or other overlooked ones—how long was it until steel/flying was mentioned in Typing? Furthermore, this isn't a gag order on the abilities that have been beaten nearly to death, ie the four listed above, but you should have a fresh perspective in your argument instead of arguing in circles. When we consider our abilities, I'd like us to consider the following questions, but first I need to cut to Regenerator to explain why:

Ok, Birkal brings up a logical argument about Regenerator which is that it allows the CAP to scout successfully, and is virtually the only way for the CAP to scout successfully, being virtually locked out of recovery and Leftovers, (the former for concept cohesion purposes and the latter for acrobatics purposes) and needing to stay above 50% to be useful. My question is: is scouting really worth the opportunity cost? As Fuzznip and many others have pointed out, basically every Pokemon in OU has a way to beat CAP6 before it sets up. And we have an ability, 50% of our statistical bulk, and perhaps a spare moveslot vs the world—significantly less than some Pokemon. Removing the ability leaves a major chink in the armor, and I don't believe scouting is worth it. People may run surprise lure sets for cap6 since it's guaranteed to have massive usage, but aside from specs hp fire forretress, i feel we can discover most lures by scouting with other Pokemon. @birkal draws the comparison to Dragonite switching out of a Rotom-W with an unknown moveset, but the whole point of a lategame sweeper is to be used after the opponent knows it's too late. It's not as if Rotom-W will hide its scarf for a whole game unless i bring out my cap6. While scouting may at first appear as an equally valid way to bring cap6 breathing room, i'd rather have an ability which directly contributes to the Big Sweep.

With that said, these are the general questions that I, at least, have been using to evaluate abilities proposed throughout the thread. I would love to see discussion on these underlying principles, because the abilities proposed and what we vote on are simply going to be symptomatic of the underlying opinions on what the CAP needs out of this step.

1) What additional setup opportunities does this ability bring?

This is the main question that every ability in the thread must answer in my opinion. If the ability does not make it easier for CAP6 to set up, I'd rather find something which can. It's the simplest pitfall of every competitive battler: finding strategies that can completely wreck teams with the right support and under the right conditions, but those conditions are stupidly specific. A little reliability goes a long way, and abilities like Unburden and Sand Rush offer little to no extra reliability. Once we're at +6, well, nothing can hurt you if it's sleeping with the fishes right?

@Scoopapa mentions that there are moves which deal with things such as status and phazing. there are literally two of these: substitute and taunt, both of which have major obvious pitfalls (such as missing a variety of phazing) and neither of which allows us to run 3-move coverage. We can't turn to the movepool for answers to defensive tactics, so—if we need to defeat them at all—we have to defeat them in the ability.

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

This is, among other things, the major pitfall of Magic Bounce. We suffer from the unfortunate combination of a great defensive typing and the need for a good defensive ability in order to make Belly Drum work, yet we can't let our Pokemon adopt a defensive role. With rare exceptions, you can't have a defensive Pokemon without a supporting movepool. Unfortunately, Magic Bounce is, as reachzero said, one of the exceptions. Magic Bounce is so exceptionally useful as an ability that competitive players managed to turn ESPEON into a bulky Pokemon, just to give it more opportunities to spin and heal bounce. No matter how restrictive our defensive movepool, cap6 wouldn't willingly shave off 50% HP.

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

Unlike the former two questions, I'm actually not looking to minimize or maximize a value here, but to find a happy medium. It's certainly a boon to remove a couple especially troublesome checks or counters from our list, but removing them all is pretty bad (it's also bad to remove only all our /offensive/ checks—while defensive checks need like 80% hp to work, pokemon that can outspeed and ko only need 1%). (This is another reason why unburden sucks—removes all non loom offensive checks). Besides, this is a question of fairly low priority anyway, since the Movepool stage is adequate to handle most checks and counters that we want to handle (read: not all of them at once

I'd like the bulk of the remaining posts in this thread to be centered around the topic of the above lenses and how they relate to abilities—not forcing you to see things my way but rather to explain why my premises are flawed and how fixing them points to your ability as the only logical answer.

As for the lenses I'm looking through, they've led me to the following conclusions about the frontrunners:

Magic Bounce:

Not only is the risk of project derailment disturbingly high here, but it also removes a probably unhealthy amount of checks, as nothing defensive has an answer to a +6 CAP. I appreciate the spirit here, as nothing else gives more setup opportunities, but i dare say going with this ability is vary riksy.

Motor Drive:

To anyone worried about Magnezone, I can easily understand why Motor Drive would be the premier ability: low risk of project derailment, gives us at least a couple setup opportunities, and removes one especially worrisome counter. My question is, why is Magnezone such a big deal? CAP6 won't be switching in much before it's ready to sweep because every stealth rock chips away at precious HP. Once I've used Belly Drum, i see no difference between Magnezone and anything that forces me to switch: one literally traps and kills me, sure, but unless we go with Regenerator, a switched out CAP after a Drum is nearly equally useless.

Unburden

Not only does it not afford us setup opportunities, it also removes every offensive answer to CAP6. At least it guarantees we'll use belly drum, but I'm pretty skeptical here. (Then again, Unburden support seems to have declined).

Water Absorb

This is similar to Motor Drive, except it trades a Magnezone immunity for increased setup opportunities (bulky waters with mono-water coverage and scarfed hydro pumps are dime a dozen). In addition, it pseudo-provides the benefits of Regenerator, if you can switch into the right things. Having such an absurdly good defensive typing and some sort of healing does somewhat risk derailing the project, but we can keep this in check with Movepool to make sure skarm is superior in the defense department.

Regenerator

I gave my opinions already, but see the last sentence of water absorb also.

Intimidate

Of the abilities suggested, this one holds most tightly to my criteria. It allows us to set up on a whole host of physical attackers (generally an easier class to prepare for since they all just try to kill shit unlike walls who employ a variety of tactics) while not obliterating our counters list. Some people have expressed fear that cap6 would become a bulky pivot a la lando-t but forget the latter's base 145 atk and stab eq and u-turn, so I'm not too worried.

Hopefully this post actually brought a new manner of thinking into the thread instead of simply rehashing old arguments. Remember, the bulk of the argument in this post was not about the abilities, but around the philosophies behind choosing the abilities, a trend I'd like to see continued. Remember also to consider and discuss Water Absorb, Sand Rush, and Intimidate. Lastly remember to suggest any new abilities that you discover which fall perfectly through your sorting algorithm. With those final thoughts, I'm going to wrap up this two hour tl;dr: post.
 
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jas61292

used substitute
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I haven't posted until now because for most of the time this thread has been up, I have been really unsure of what abilities I want for this Pokemon. There have been plenty I think would be bad for us to have, but none really stood out to me as being a great direction for us to go. However, having read the posts on it, I would like to give some support to Intimidate.

When it was first brought up, I will freely admit that I just dismissed it as the kind of generic good ability that is brought up all the time that has little to do with what we want. After all, its true that it is a great ability for a bulky pivot. However, having thought about it more, I believe that with the kind of build we need to get Belly Drum to work, fitting into such a pivot role will be nearly impossible. As Pwnemon mentioned, Lando-T does it, but then Lando-T has 145 Attack and STAB Earthquake. If we want to entice CAP6 into using Belly Drum, we cannot give it such massive natural power, and regardless of power level, our STABs do not have anything as reliable, powerful, and generally useful as Earthquake. The truth is, if we are to build a Pokemon that will have any incentive at all to use Belly Drum, it will not be able to function in a pivoting role, or else it simply won't take the risk of BD.

With that said, if Intimidate was selected, all it would really be good for would be giving us more and better set-up opportunities. We still have to pick and choose when to set up, as it doesn't do anything to stop us from being walled or revenged (not that this is bad), but Intimidate actually allows us to get set up chances on a switch in, and not simply by coming in after a KO by a choice user. The exact group of Pokemon we can set up on is still limited; even with Intimidate, super effective moves would do too much for Belly Drum to work. However, within that group, the set-up can be a lot more reliable, which is something that we really need. Reliability is key to being a successful Pokemon. While I don't believe any Belly Drummer can be fully reliable, adding reliability to one part of our Pokemon will go a long way to helping it function.


On the flip side, I would like to say that I am very much against Sand Rush. Sand Rush is an ability with a function very similar to Unburden, but frankly, it is straight up better. Now I am not going to address all the specifics since others have done it already, but I would just like to say I am in complete agreement with those who have said that Unburden is a bad ability for this concept. It makes us nigh unkillable once set up (unless we gimp the speed stat, at which point there is like one choosable stat, period, and thus a lack of stats discussion), without doing anything to help us get set-up. Sand Rush takes this to the next level. It still makes us impossible to revenge, and it still doesn't do anything to help us set up, which is really what we need, but then, in addition, it does it all without wasting an item slot, and can be used over and over again. To make it worse, it puts us in direct competition with Pokemon like Stoutland. Remember, Stoutland only has 100 base Attack. You don't need a lot of power to find use when you have such a nice ability. If CAP 6 can come in and act as a revenge killer in sand with a better typing than Stoutland, it will be a miracle if we ever get it to Belly Drum at all.

Regenerator is another one I am not really sold on. It doesn't help facilitate setting up, and provides us with another niche that is not exactly compatible with a sweeper that wants to lose half its health. The idea of scouting your own set up opportunities is nice in theory, but in practice, you have a team of 6 to scout for you, and I fear giving such an ability would lead to us just not setting up at all.
 
I know I said I was done plugging Regenerator, but I am reneging to address Pwnemon's questions directly.

1) What additional setup opportunities does this ability bring?

This is the main question that every ability in the thread must answer in my opinion. If the ability does not make it easier for CAP6 to set up, I'd rather find something which can. It's the simplest pitfall of every competitive battler: finding strategies that can completely wreck teams with the right support and under the right conditions, but those conditions are stupidly specific. A little reliability goes a long way, and abilities like Unburden and Sand Rush offer little to no extra reliability. Once we're at +6, well, nothing can hurt you if it's sleeping with the fishes right?

@Scoopapa mentions that there are moves which deal with things such as status and phazing. there are literally two of these: substitute and taunt, both of which have major obvious pitfalls (such as missing a variety of phazing) and neither of which allows us to run 3-move coverage. We can't turn to the movepool for answers to defensive tactics, so—if we need to defeat them at all—we have to defeat them in the ability.
By using Regenerator, I actually think that we can exploit our movepool to avoid status and phazing, specifically Substitute. Substitute prevents Dragon Tail and all forms of status from slower Pokemon, but comes with a huge drawback without Regenerator - 25% of our incredibly precious health. With Regenerator, switching in after rocks, Subbing once, and getting forced (or deliberately luring and switching) out leaves you with 95.8% of your health.

Defensive pokemon no longer have the luxury to get cute and threaten status whatsoever, and CAP can lure its own counters by switching out on the attack that breaks its sub. Using Substitute in such a manner still requires getting in for free against a relatively short list of pokemon (and leaves you with absurdly low HP after a Belly Drum), but it expands our sweeping window to include the midgame by constantly and cheaply threatening to give itself free setup opportunities. As a side note, we also have the option to give CAP a phazing move of its own to deal with slower opposing phazers, but that seems way too defensively off-concept combined with Substitute and Regenerator.

2) With a reasonable movepool, how likely is this ability to distract from the concept? (The concept obviously being: Belly Drum user)
There's certainly the possibility of this happening. Passive healing improves pretty much everything about a pokemon, not just its ability to Belly Drum sweep. There's always the chance that we fall into the trap of making a defensive pivot instead of a proper setup pokemon. I think we can address that, though - we'd obviously have to keep our movepool very controlled as to potential support moves we give it. I can think of quite a few that I think would really benefit our spare slot on a mono-attacking Belly Drum set, but if we get greedy then we'll end up making Skarmory number 2, and that's super easy to see happening. I think that we can walk that line, however, and keep its options narrow enough to eschew a defensive pivot-type set.

3) What Pokemon does this remove from the threats list while at +6?
Well, kind of none of them. Regenerator does nothing for CAP once it's on the field, and you can pretty much expect to be working with 37.5% of its health under the best conditions. The most it does is make Substitute multi-use, which might facilitate a Belly Drum with an intact substitute (and 12.5% hp, if CAP had that much to spare to begin with). From there, every offensive check turns into suicide-on-a-substitute fodder, but that'd be a well deserved sweep after all that setup and sacrificed health.

TLDR; Substitute, yo.
 
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DetroitLolcat

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All right, so Pwnemon's post pretty much tells us what we should be discussing, so I guess I'll post some more.

Magic Bounce is not what we're looking for. Although I don't think the cries of brokenness for most abilities are justified because of how risky Belly Drum is as a move, I do think Magic Bounce is a step too far. As Pwnemon stated, Magic Bounce prevents nearly ever defensive Pokemon in OU from being able to touch this Pokemon before or after setting up Belly Drum. Most defensive Pokemon carry three defensive moves and an attack; usually an Earthquake or a Scald to lop the last 30% off of a Pokemon and not be shut down by Taunt. With Magic Bounce, Ferrothorn cannot touch us at all. Forretress cannot touch us outside of a Volt Switch that hits weaker than a Constrict from a Tentacool with both its limbs cut off. Skarmory is now 100% set-up bait, as is Gliscor. Celebi can't harm us with Thunder Wave, and Hippowdon can't hit us with a last-ditch Whirlwind. Although I'm all for a powerful ability to cement CAP6's status as a premier Physical sweeper in OU, Magic Bounce just isn't fair to defensive teams. We don't want to be so destructive to defensive teams; Magic Bounce is not our ability.

Regenerator has plenty of good arguments behind it, but I'm skeptical. It's definitely not pro-concept; it just lets CAP6 perform a second role as a scout as well as a Belly Drummer. Also, Belly Drum is a move that cuts down our HP and removes any incentive we have to switch out for the rest of the battle. On the other hand, Regnenerator raises our HP and creates a larger incentive to switch out. I do not feel comfortable with an ability that is in direct opposition to our concept. Furthermore, the talk about combining Regenerator with moves like Substitute is just ridiculous; Regenerator does not help us with Substitute, at least not if we want to use Belly Drum later on. Regenerator does not ameliorate the problem of Belly Drum and Substitute costing us 75% of CAP6's HP. CAP6 has 5 teammates, and one or two of them can be dedicated towards scouting. I don't have a problem with CAP6 using its teammates for scouting because CAP6 is the type of Pokemon that you build a team around. If you have a team with CAP6 in it, then your final goal is to get CAP6 to massacre the opponent's team. Furthermore, Regenerator on CAP6 shifts its focus from sweeping to both sweeping and scouting. It distracts us from the concept by adding another role for CAP6 to accomplish. Again, not our ability.

jas61292 hit the nail on the head with Sand Rush. It ties CAP6 to weather (let's make our Pokemon even less versatile!) and takes half the problem of setting up out of the equation. While I disagree with him on Unburden, Sand Rush is too much.
 

Bughouse

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OK. After a small flirtation with Motor Drive, I have come to the conclusion that we need an ability that aids set-up, and it needs to be a damn good one. Intimidate fills this goal, as jas and pwnemon have just argued. I'm wary of a general goodstuffs ability, but we probably need one...

Here's another option:

I'd like to draw attention to one other ability that hopefully serves as a compromise for those who want easier set-up and those who want better sweeping: Magic Guard.

Here's what Magic Guard does. We don't take Stealth Rock Damage coming in. While this ability would have been more effective defensively with another typing not already immune to Spikes and Sandstorm, it does go the final step and allow us to avoid Stealth Rock too. What difference does that make, you ask? Well, any Pokemon that does <50% is now a chance to set up, not <37.5%. It also means that CAP 6 can't be quite so easily handled by switching to something that hits harder as CAP 6 Belly Drums.

For example, let's say CAP 6 has 100/80 bulk, uninvested. Now you can't switch your SpDef Celebi out into Scarf Latios so that Draco Meteor can nab the kill (if Rain isn't up, Draco does more than Surf) after the Belly Drum. Scarf Draco from Latios deals max 47%, meaning you will live one, now that Stealth Rock didn't damage you on entry.

Additional defensive side benefits include the fact that Scald Burns, which yes will still reduce us to an effective +2 rather than +6, won't cause residual damage and that Ferrothorn can't Leech Seed us anymore, though T-Wave is still annoying.

Offensively, I'm sure some of you are already screaming about how Magic Guard Life Orb abuse will happen!! Oh but wait, LO + Acrobatics = not compatible. It turns out that a LO Drill Peck deals less than an itemless Acrobatics. So yes, LO will boost the Steel STAB and coverage moves beyond what CAP 6 would otherwise have (though we can neuter this in movepool by offering weaker coverage if we want to), but LO Drill Peck is not a huge threat, any more so than Acrobatics was. And Flying STAB really is the big kahuna for CAP 6 to sweep, anyway. Oh, and remember that at that point, you are sacrificing the Sitrus Berry Acrobatics CAP might be running. I don't think LO would automatically become the default item at all for sweeping purposes.

(and yes, we can totally ban Brave Bird. Darkslay is a reasonable guy and if Magic Guard was chosen, I assure you Brave Bird would be a banned move.)

Just food for thought that Magic Guard may not be as broken as some fear.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
I am going to echo @DetroitLolcat on Magic Bounce. I think it gives us way too much and is more likely to turn us into a hazards counter than anything else. Yes, it does let us get off our Belly Drum better, but after that nothing can force you out. You can't be paralyzed, burnt or phazed. The only stuff that is going to beat you out is hugely offensive/fast mons. I really don't think this is something we want/need. It gives us *way* too much. With our typing people WILL use it as a defensive pivot as opposed to a hard working physical killer.

Sand Rush is pretty strong, I did some testing with Nyttyn and it was exceptional with Roost (I'm just basing it off it being Flying typed...). I'm not sure if tying us to a weather is a good move though (But being Steel typed we are inherently leaning towards it being used in rain to help mitigate the fire weakness). Sand Rush would give us an alternative weather to play into/with. I was using Skarmory as a test bed, so I had its ridiculous univested defences and was still taking pretty big hits from Tyranitar. Intimidate I think I like more than anything else at this point. It helps us switching in and tanking a hit (assuming reasonable defences). The speed boosting abilities seem nice, but I am not sure if any fill the criteria we actually want. Magnezone isn't scared of us even with Motor Drive (nearly 3/4 run HP Fire) and unless we switch into a Volt Switch chances are we lose either way. Assuming reasonable bulk, base 100HP/80 Spcl Def takes way over 60% from HP Fire with no investment.

I like the sound of Water Absorb, mainly because it lets us switch into locked water moves (which are surprisingly common). It pretty much forces the foe to switch out giving us our free belly drum if we go that route.
 
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