No mention in the banlist, whereas Schooling is there. I did check :)
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CAP 24 CAP 24 - Part 4 - Primary and Secondary Ability Discussion
- Thread starter Quanyails
- Start date
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NumberCruncher said:
If Flower Gift is illegal, can it please be added to the list, just to avoid further confusion? Last I checked, it's not on either ban list. That being said, I know we usually stick hard and fast to Game Freak's mechanics, but couldn't we, for the purposes of CAP, say that Cherrium's transformation is an effect unique to Cherrium, not Flower Gift. It wouldn't change anything competitively (Unless Cherrium's froms have differant stats or something. I've never used it before, so I don't know). Or, couldn't we just give CAP 24 an entirely cosmetic second form? It wouldn't even have to be something fancy, just enough to show it "transformed". If not, that's fine. Just my thoughts on the issue.
In other news, I also really like Drought for the Primary Ability, mostly for the same reasons others have already discussed. Having another good Sun setter is something most Sun teams would appreciate. Speed control can still be achieved via move pool, stats or item choice, so it's not like we have to give CAP 24 Chlorophyll to give it speed control. Also, I do like the idea of possible Fire coverage being boosted, in case we decide to go that route later on. However, Chlorophyll is appealing because it handily takes care of our Speed Control issue (assuming we can keep Sun up), without restricting our item choice. Losing a move slot for Sunny Day is less than ideal though, so I feel like these two are about equal in my opinion.
I can't help but notice Speed Boost is not on the ban list. Is that an oversight, or intentional? If Speed Boost is allowed, that could give us an alternative form of Speed Control that's independent of the Sun and lets us use whatever moves/items we want. Of course, we'd have to be careful to avoid a Blaziken type scenario, but it's just something I noticed and wanted to through out there.
I'm still thinking about Sand Abilities. I'll get back to you guys when I'm done pondering everything lol.
5. Does sun or sand need the primary ability?
As many people have said before, Sun is the weather that would benefit the most from a stronger ability like Drought, which makes it the best choice for the primary ability slot. However, I think there's one Sand ability that might des the slot too:
Sand Stream: The ability to automatically summon sandstorm would be ideal to support Excadrill, and it'd allows us to replace Tyranitar/Hippowdon as setters, while still having great type synergy with existing abusers thanks to our typing. It should also be noted the only notable Sun ability that would be excluded as a secondary ability is Drought, meaning that if we were to choose Sand Stream, there would still be other powerful choices available to support Sun, such as Chlorophyll. Of course, this doesn't mean that this ability is not without some serious problems, for starters, it does not provide the user with a sand immunity meaning that CAP 24 would be forced to take sand damage. Not only that, one might argue that by just using CAP 24 as a Sand setter, we're not really abusing it, instead, it would be relegated to a support role on a sand team, simply providing the appropiate weather for others to use, but never actually taking advantage of that weather by ourselves. Personally this is not my favorite choice for a slot, but I still believe that it is at least worth considering.
As for my thought on other abilities:
Drought: This one has gained a lot traction, and its easy to see why. While it doesn't provide Chlorophyll's speed, just the ability to set up Sun without depending on the mediocre Malaconda is huge, and it would boost Sun more than any other choice. That being said I find the part of snake's argument about focusing on wallbreaking instead of speed control to be questionable at least. There a reason why we chose to focus on the later: Sun already has all the wallbreaking power it could ever want, Specs Volkraken is already one of the best Rain abusers, and under the Sun, it is arguably even more dangerous thanks to Fire Blast slightly higher accuracy when compared with Hydro Pump, and more importantly, the lack of any viable Fire-immunities outside of Heatran (which can still be 2HKO by Hydro Pump even under the sun: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Volkraken Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran in Sun: 216-254 (56.1 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery), and even Arghonaut, the only Water-Type capable of taking 2 Sun-boosted Fire Blasts on the switch with Stealth Rock on the field, can be beaten if it takes even just a tiny bit of damage before (something that Toxic Heatran could do very easily). While it is true that we could simply leave the speed control role to another teammate, it would still be much better if we were able to provide this by ourselves, as there are still many ways this could be done even without having Chlorophyll as our Sun ability, as providing yet another wallbreaker would be completely redundant. However, we should not forget that auto-weather abilities are some of the strongest ones available, and it could end up overshadowing the secondary pick quite easily, meaning that we'll have to work extra hard to prevent that from happening.
Chlorophyll: This is clearly the best ability for providing Sun teams the speed control they so desperately needs. Of course its main drawback is that we would still need to depend on a preexisting setter, which are all pretty underwhelming. Despite this, the power that a good Chlorophyll user would possess should not be underestimated, as the speed boost will could remove almost any offensive counter-play against CAP 24 as long as the Sun shines. Personally, this is my favorite pick, because it allows us to abuse Sun the best, and if we are sufficiently strong, then the only thing Malaconda will need to do is switch-in 2 or 3 times in a game, and just let CAP 24, Volkraken and Heatran do the rest of the job.
Sand Force: On one hand, I have to agree with DLC, boosting just one relevant type (Ground), it is a underwhelming ability. However, I still believe it is probably the best choice for a Sand-based ability, because it allows us to deal more damage to stuff like Toxapex, M-Crucibelle and Heatran, and most important of all, gives us a real incentive for running CAP 24 on a Sand team.
Sand Rush: It is certainly stronger than Sand Force, but its kinda redundant, as Sand already has a decent user with Excadrill. However, just the fact that it directly bounds us to use Sand makes it a far superior choice to any other ability.
Finally I'd like to answer to people that think this concept can work without picking an ability directly linked to weather. The problem with doing that is that without an appropiate ability, the only thing that connects us to weather is our supposed synergy with pre-existing abusers, that reasoning has already failed to accomplish several concepts in the past (Voodoom, Volkraken, Plasmanta) . Trying to boost the viability of a mediocre Pokémon by introducing a supposed "partner" has never worked in the past and I see no reason why this time will be any different. People have brought up that Rain is able to use mons that don't directly benefit from it, such as Hawlucha, but they ignore the fact that Rain is able to stand on its own, that is why stuff like Lucha can happily patch up holes on it. On the other hand neither Sun nor Sand are able to accomplish even that, and are only a burden for the rest of their team. Tapu Bulu, a Grass/Fairy type that complements some of their worst weaknesses already exist, and yet, I have yet to see a successful San/Sun team with it (I am aware that Bulu it's unable to beat Tomohawk, one of the biggest threats to Sand, but it still can support its team not only by resisting Ground, but also by removing Excadrill and Tyranitar weakness to it too) [EDIT: reachzero pointed out on Discord that I made a dumb mistake here, as Bulu halves the power of Excadrill's Earthquake, so this is a bad example]. We can also still accomplish our goal of having use outside of weather without the need to have a competitive ability, there are multiple mons in OU with middling or outright useless abilities such as Zygarde, Mew, Zapdos, Keldeo, Volcarona, etc. Of course this doesn't mean that weather abilities will guarantee the success of this project, but I think they will have a decent chance at succeeding, unlike the other option, which we should know by now will be doomed to fail.
As many people have said before, Sun is the weather that would benefit the most from a stronger ability like Drought, which makes it the best choice for the primary ability slot. However, I think there's one Sand ability that might des the slot too:
Sand Stream: The ability to automatically summon sandstorm would be ideal to support Excadrill, and it'd allows us to replace Tyranitar/Hippowdon as setters, while still having great type synergy with existing abusers thanks to our typing. It should also be noted the only notable Sun ability that would be excluded as a secondary ability is Drought, meaning that if we were to choose Sand Stream, there would still be other powerful choices available to support Sun, such as Chlorophyll. Of course, this doesn't mean that this ability is not without some serious problems, for starters, it does not provide the user with a sand immunity meaning that CAP 24 would be forced to take sand damage. Not only that, one might argue that by just using CAP 24 as a Sand setter, we're not really abusing it, instead, it would be relegated to a support role on a sand team, simply providing the appropiate weather for others to use, but never actually taking advantage of that weather by ourselves. Personally this is not my favorite choice for a slot, but I still believe that it is at least worth considering.
As for my thought on other abilities:
Drought: This one has gained a lot traction, and its easy to see why. While it doesn't provide Chlorophyll's speed, just the ability to set up Sun without depending on the mediocre Malaconda is huge, and it would boost Sun more than any other choice. That being said I find the part of snake's argument about focusing on wallbreaking instead of speed control to be questionable at least. There a reason why we chose to focus on the later: Sun already has all the wallbreaking power it could ever want, Specs Volkraken is already one of the best Rain abusers, and under the Sun, it is arguably even more dangerous thanks to Fire Blast slightly higher accuracy when compared with Hydro Pump, and more importantly, the lack of any viable Fire-immunities outside of Heatran (which can still be 2HKO by Hydro Pump even under the sun: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Volkraken Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran in Sun: 216-254 (56.1 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery), and even Arghonaut, the only Water-Type capable of taking 2 Sun-boosted Fire Blasts on the switch with Stealth Rock on the field, can be beaten if it takes even just a tiny bit of damage before (something that Toxic Heatran could do very easily). While it is true that we could simply leave the speed control role to another teammate, it would still be much better if we were able to provide this by ourselves, as there are still many ways this could be done even without having Chlorophyll as our Sun ability, as providing yet another wallbreaker would be completely redundant. However, we should not forget that auto-weather abilities are some of the strongest ones available, and it could end up overshadowing the secondary pick quite easily, meaning that we'll have to work extra hard to prevent that from happening.
Chlorophyll: This is clearly the best ability for providing Sun teams the speed control they so desperately needs. Of course its main drawback is that we would still need to depend on a preexisting setter, which are all pretty underwhelming. Despite this, the power that a good Chlorophyll user would possess should not be underestimated, as the speed boost will could remove almost any offensive counter-play against CAP 24 as long as the Sun shines. Personally, this is my favorite pick, because it allows us to abuse Sun the best, and if we are sufficiently strong, then the only thing Malaconda will need to do is switch-in 2 or 3 times in a game, and just let CAP 24, Volkraken and Heatran do the rest of the job.
Sand Force: On one hand, I have to agree with DLC, boosting just one relevant type (Ground), it is a underwhelming ability. However, I still believe it is probably the best choice for a Sand-based ability, because it allows us to deal more damage to stuff like Toxapex, M-Crucibelle and Heatran, and most important of all, gives us a real incentive for running CAP 24 on a Sand team.
Sand Rush: It is certainly stronger than Sand Force, but its kinda redundant, as Sand already has a decent user with Excadrill. However, just the fact that it directly bounds us to use Sand makes it a far superior choice to any other ability.
Finally I'd like to answer to people that think this concept can work without picking an ability directly linked to weather. The problem with doing that is that without an appropiate ability, the only thing that connects us to weather is our supposed synergy with pre-existing abusers, that reasoning has already failed to accomplish several concepts in the past (Voodoom, Volkraken, Plasmanta) . Trying to boost the viability of a mediocre Pokémon by introducing a supposed "partner" has never worked in the past and I see no reason why this time will be any different. People have brought up that Rain is able to use mons that don't directly benefit from it, such as Hawlucha, but they ignore the fact that Rain is able to stand on its own, that is why stuff like Lucha can happily patch up holes on it. On the other hand neither Sun nor Sand are able to accomplish even that, and are only a burden for the rest of their team. Tapu Bulu, a Grass/Fairy type that complements some of their worst weaknesses already exist, and yet, I have yet to see a successful San/Sun team with it (I am aware that Bulu it's unable to beat Tomohawk, one of the biggest threats to Sand, but it still can support its team not only by resisting Ground, but also by removing Excadrill and Tyranitar weakness to it too) [EDIT: reachzero pointed out on Discord that I made a dumb mistake here, as Bulu halves the power of Excadrill's Earthquake, so this is a bad example]. We can also still accomplish our goal of having use outside of weather without the need to have a competitive ability, there are multiple mons in OU with middling or outright useless abilities such as Zygarde, Mew, Zapdos, Keldeo, Volcarona, etc. Of course this doesn't mean that weather abilities will guarantee the success of this project, but I think they will have a decent chance at succeeding, unlike the other option, which we should know by now will be doomed to fail.
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My thoughts on sand abilities:
Sand Rush is something I'd rather avoid. We know, for sure, that CAP24 wants to wallbreak for Sand. In that light, Sand Rush doesn't make the most sense for CAP24. In addition to that, we'd have to be careful that CAP24 doesn't simply beat everything that Excadrill loses to just because it outspeeds all of its checks under Sand. I'd rather stick with a wallbreaking ability for Sand and not Sand Rush.
Sand Force, as DLC says, is a bit of a red herring. Yeah, raising the power of Hidden Power Ground, Weather Ball, and Flash Cannon, as well as not taking sand residual sounds cool, but I don't think that it's the only option here.
Sand Veil is pretty interesting. CAP24, being weak to a bunch of scary attacks like Fire Blast, Hurricane, Gunk Shot would like it if those attacks missed more often. Fire Blast goes from 85% to 68%, which is less than standard Focus Blast. Hurricane goes to 56%. Gunk Shot goes to 64% accuracy. Ice Beam goes down to 80% under Sand, and Air Slash goes down to 76%. This would allow CAP24 to run a Substitute set that could keep it safe from all of those scary moves, and it would not take the residual damage from Sand. To be perfectly honest, I think Sand Veil works the best for our threatlist and projected role out of these three abilities in particular.
As for non-specific Sand abilities, I have a new suggestion. There is, in fact, an ability that depends on you taking damage: Berserk. Berserk raises your Special Attack if your HP goes below 50%, so the Sand damage is constantly pushing CAP24 down to that boosting range. What I like about this ability is that it's not super crazy like Sheer Force or Magic Guard are in usefulness, and it's not as fringe as a wallbreaking ability as Sand Force, which raises the power of only a few coverage moves.
Now, back to sun...
I mean you say the problem later in your post.
CAP24, the way I personally see it, would add to that wallbreaking power. But the main benefit of Drought is not that it'd be just stacking more firepower on Sun cores, it'd enable that wallbreaking potential from Volkraken, Mega Charizard X, Heatran, Mega Houndoom, etc. much easier than if you were depending on those bad setters. I addressed in my post about the speed control issue, that you'd use speed control with teammates like any "normal" or "standard" offensive team would.
That being said, I'll post my arguments for Chlorophyll in a later post.
Sand Rush is something I'd rather avoid. We know, for sure, that CAP24 wants to wallbreak for Sand. In that light, Sand Rush doesn't make the most sense for CAP24. In addition to that, we'd have to be careful that CAP24 doesn't simply beat everything that Excadrill loses to just because it outspeeds all of its checks under Sand. I'd rather stick with a wallbreaking ability for Sand and not Sand Rush.
Sand Force, as DLC says, is a bit of a red herring. Yeah, raising the power of Hidden Power Ground, Weather Ball, and Flash Cannon, as well as not taking sand residual sounds cool, but I don't think that it's the only option here.
Sand Veil is pretty interesting. CAP24, being weak to a bunch of scary attacks like Fire Blast, Hurricane, Gunk Shot would like it if those attacks missed more often. Fire Blast goes from 85% to 68%, which is less than standard Focus Blast. Hurricane goes to 56%. Gunk Shot goes to 64% accuracy. Ice Beam goes down to 80% under Sand, and Air Slash goes down to 76%. This would allow CAP24 to run a Substitute set that could keep it safe from all of those scary moves, and it would not take the residual damage from Sand. To be perfectly honest, I think Sand Veil works the best for our threatlist and projected role out of these three abilities in particular.
As for non-specific Sand abilities, I have a new suggestion. There is, in fact, an ability that depends on you taking damage: Berserk. Berserk raises your Special Attack if your HP goes below 50%, so the Sand damage is constantly pushing CAP24 down to that boosting range. What I like about this ability is that it's not super crazy like Sheer Force or Magic Guard are in usefulness, and it's not as fringe as a wallbreaking ability as Sand Force, which raises the power of only a few coverage moves.
Now, back to sun...
I mean you say the problem later in your post.
CAP24, the way I personally see it, would add to that wallbreaking power. But the main benefit of Drought is not that it'd be just stacking more firepower on Sun cores, it'd enable that wallbreaking potential from Volkraken, Mega Charizard X, Heatran, Mega Houndoom, etc. much easier than if you were depending on those bad setters. I addressed in my post about the speed control issue, that you'd use speed control with teammates like any "normal" or "standard" offensive team would.
That being said, I'll post my arguments for Chlorophyll in a later post.
I want to take this moment to argue in favor of Regenerator as CAP24’s sand ability. Regenerator is a strong ability on its own, but it complements the goals we wanted to include for CAP24.
We chose grass/fairy more for its defensive capability against water, ground, and fighting. This, to me, implies CAP24 is our go to switch for sand teams. CAP24 is already hindered by the constant sand damage it takes. We can’t expect this Pokémon to take hits reliably in the sand if we don’t give it an ability to fulfill that role. Sand Force may prevent the sand damage turns, but, based on the move pool speculation people have already been discussing on discord, we are potentially looking at only 1 of our 4 go-to moves benefiting from this ability. Also, one of our moves will probably be delegated to self-healing in some form. That only gives us 3 moves to wall break with if we go the Sand Force route. With Regenerator, it potentially frees up an additional move slot to better play the role of wall breaker. We have threats. We will be forced to switch. We should take advantage of that by using Regenerator to make us take hits longer and be a bigger threat. Lastly, it lets Regenerator act as both our sand ability and ability out of weather. By giving it Regenerator, CAP24 will potentially have a similar wall-breaking functionality as Volcanion but be better equipped to play a defensive roll in tandem.
We chose grass/fairy more for its defensive capability against water, ground, and fighting. This, to me, implies CAP24 is our go to switch for sand teams. CAP24 is already hindered by the constant sand damage it takes. We can’t expect this Pokémon to take hits reliably in the sand if we don’t give it an ability to fulfill that role. Sand Force may prevent the sand damage turns, but, based on the move pool speculation people have already been discussing on discord, we are potentially looking at only 1 of our 4 go-to moves benefiting from this ability. Also, one of our moves will probably be delegated to self-healing in some form. That only gives us 3 moves to wall break with if we go the Sand Force route. With Regenerator, it potentially frees up an additional move slot to better play the role of wall breaker. We have threats. We will be forced to switch. We should take advantage of that by using Regenerator to make us take hits longer and be a bigger threat. Lastly, it lets Regenerator act as both our sand ability and ability out of weather. By giving it Regenerator, CAP24 will potentially have a similar wall-breaking functionality as Volcanion but be better equipped to play a defensive roll in tandem.
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5. Does sun or sand need the primary ability?
Sun definitely needs more help due to be next to unviable, Sand at least has some things to work around. I don't want to recall too much about this, so I'll talk about the abilities.
Chlorophyll is the most obvious choice and it definitely should be considered, if we want to adress speed control tools just for Sun teams. Drought also adresses the problem of a lack of proper sun setters as snake_rattler mentioned before, but that doesn't aim to solve the main problem we want to patch with CAP24, does that mean is a bad thing? Not exactly.
We're aiming to add a speed control tool because we want to mimic how rain works with having great speed control tools. With Drought we'd be having a different approach in creating a wallbreaking core with Pokemon like Volkraken and another wallbreakers can't remember right now, and then relying in general good speed control Pokemon like Scarf Kartana. That's a perfectly valid approach it's worthy to analyze but at same time I think it'd be derailing from something we discussed in concept assessment phase.
For Sand, as Wulfanator72 mentioned, Regenerator it's a great ability which gives those benefits.
-Mitigates Sand damage.
-Let us check Earthquake users and Ash-Greninja without being too afraid of being chipped.
-Let us use Life Orb with certain efficiency, helping in the wallbreaker role we want CAP24 fulfills in Sand.
-Enables possible Assault Vest sets to check Ash-Greninja with more consistency (does mentioning that count as polljumping?)
-Lets CAP24 to have a niche outside weather as well, which is something we talked in concept assesssment.
It's probably a generally good ability, and that's maybe the main drawback of thinking in Regenerator, but it's worthy to consider because it helps to fulfill what we want CAP24 patches for Sand teams. Overcoat is a subpar ability but it helps to avoid Sand damage without relying in overall powerful abilities such as Magic Guard.
Sun definitely needs more help due to be next to unviable, Sand at least has some things to work around. I don't want to recall too much about this, so I'll talk about the abilities.
Chlorophyll is the most obvious choice and it definitely should be considered, if we want to adress speed control tools just for Sun teams. Drought also adresses the problem of a lack of proper sun setters as snake_rattler mentioned before, but that doesn't aim to solve the main problem we want to patch with CAP24, does that mean is a bad thing? Not exactly.
We're aiming to add a speed control tool because we want to mimic how rain works with having great speed control tools. With Drought we'd be having a different approach in creating a wallbreaking core with Pokemon like Volkraken and another wallbreakers can't remember right now, and then relying in general good speed control Pokemon like Scarf Kartana. That's a perfectly valid approach it's worthy to analyze but at same time I think it'd be derailing from something we discussed in concept assessment phase.
For Sand, as Wulfanator72 mentioned, Regenerator it's a great ability which gives those benefits.
-Mitigates Sand damage.
-Let us check Earthquake users and Ash-Greninja without being too afraid of being chipped.
-Let us use Life Orb with certain efficiency, helping in the wallbreaker role we want CAP24 fulfills in Sand.
-Enables possible Assault Vest sets to check Ash-Greninja with more consistency (does mentioning that count as polljumping?)
-Lets CAP24 to have a niche outside weather as well, which is something we talked in concept assesssment.
It's probably a generally good ability, and that's maybe the main drawback of thinking in Regenerator, but it's worthy to consider because it helps to fulfill what we want CAP24 patches for Sand teams. Overcoat is a subpar ability but it helps to avoid Sand damage without relying in overall powerful abilities such as Magic Guard.
My point was that even if we choose Drought as our ability, we should still focus on speed control on later stages, if we simply create another sun wallbreaker, then we're going to end up with a bunch of abusers that can demolish defensive teams, but basically auto-lose against anything offensive.
Also, we should never even consider Sand Veil, evasion-based abilities are inherently uncompetitive, and should never be picked. The only reason why they're not banned its because they're underwhelming, but if there was one that was actually decent, I have no doubt it would end up being banned (See Gen 5 Garchomp)
I agree with you on the speed control in later stages. It wasn't my intention to throw speed control out the window if I made it sound that way. There are plenty of moves that work in this regard.
Sand Veil, admittedly, is pretty underwhelming, but unlike Garchomp, CAP24 is weak to more innaccurate moves (Fire Blast, Gunk Shot, Hurricane to name a few) than Garchomp is, and is likely to have better stats than say, Cacturne.
Regenerator is a really cool ability that CAP24 would love to use, but it is pretty "generically good." One of the arguments against it on Discord was "I'd never use it on Sand if it had Regenerator," but I'm fairly confident that a Grass / Fairy that can wallbreak pretty successfully will definitely appear on Sand teams. If Tapu Bulu's Grassy Terrain didn't weaken Excadrill's Earthquake, Tapu Bulu would provide great support for Sand teams.
I like this one. I don't think it's poll jumping to point out the synergy this strategy could have with Shore Up. Restoring 2/3rds HP to quickly get out of the dangerously low HP required by Berserk, setting it up to activate again and negating the chip damage to some degree. Let me point out that Berserk is only triggered by direct damage though; so sand damage taking us under 50% won't activate it. I take it you mean sand chipping us while at high health makes it easier for any given hit afterwards to bring us under 50%. It seems inherently balanced because of that facet; Substitute can't trigger it either unlike Starter abilities and pinch berries.
If we want a physical wallbreaking ability then Rock Head could be interesting. I'll have to poll jump a bit to discuss this, it's impossible not to given the nature of the ability. Indirectly it gives us stronger moves by making Wood Hammer, Head Smash and Flare Blitz viable. It also works with Light of Ruin but I imagine that move is banned for obvious reasons.
When it comes to sand, there's another ability that have been mentioned by Sereg , but didn't have any attention apart of that. I'm talking of Magic Guard. I follows the same idea as rock head (being able to use powerful recoil moves without downsides), but with also a some other advantages. First, it makes sense flavorwise (since CAP 24 is fairy type). Now I know we're not supposed to talk about this, but it's still a little plus. Second, with this ability, CAP 24 can run life orb without losing life, which is a great advantage when it comes to wallbreaking. This way, CAP 24 wouldn't need to carry choice objects at all, and could have a grass STAB without the fear of having to switch every time it uses it. (Also, the combo Magic Guard + LO is like sand force but on every move instead of just HP Ground.) Third, Magic Guard would make CAP 24 immune to sand. But, contrarily to Sand Rush or Sand Force, It can be used outside of Sandstorm as well. That means CAP 24 could have his niche outside of weather while still being more relevent in.
Now, I am far too say that Magic Guard is the best ability CAP 24 could carry, but I think it should be at least considered.
Currently, there is one Sun ability I’m liking and two Sand abilities.
Sun: Drought
Sand: Regenerator, Sand Veil
With Chlorophyll, it honestly is super useful and all, but as Drap has mentioned on Discord, is kind of lame. It gives us speed control, yes, but it doesn’t address anything that say, Scarf Heatran can’t do in terms of speed control. There are also Pokémon like ZardX who can set up with boosting moves to become faster, becoming their own form of speed control. The main issue with Sun right now is a lack of good setters. Venusaur is by no means an amazing Pokémon (it’s in NU for crying out loud), but it would probably be a thousand times better with a reliable setter. Not saying it would be viable though. Chlorophyll addresses Speed Control, but a good speed stat would also address that. Drought fixes a problem only fixable in this stage- bad setters. With Drought, even if Sun teams fail, Sun cores can prevail. I’m gonna leave it there, as others have said the other upsides of Drought better than I could.
Regenerator I have been liking for a while, but I couldn’t think of a rebuttal to it being genetically good. However, I realized with what Snake said that Regenerator is a fantastic idea for us. It helps reduce damage throughout the match, allowing us to more easily punch holes in Sand walls with appropriate coverage. As Snake mentioned, Grass/Fairy has amazing synergy with Sand teams, so I think it would be ran on Sand. Sand Veil is my favorite of the Sand-related abilities. It helps us be more defensive with our build. It also increases longevity with reducing the accuracy of moves that threaten us. Pair Sand Veil with reliable recovery, and you have yourself a great bulky Sand abuser. Beserk seemed fine, but if Sand doesn’t activate Beserk, I’m not that big of a fan.
Sun: Drought
Sand: Regenerator, Sand Veil
With Chlorophyll, it honestly is super useful and all, but as Drap has mentioned on Discord, is kind of lame. It gives us speed control, yes, but it doesn’t address anything that say, Scarf Heatran can’t do in terms of speed control. There are also Pokémon like ZardX who can set up with boosting moves to become faster, becoming their own form of speed control. The main issue with Sun right now is a lack of good setters. Venusaur is by no means an amazing Pokémon (it’s in NU for crying out loud), but it would probably be a thousand times better with a reliable setter. Not saying it would be viable though. Chlorophyll addresses Speed Control, but a good speed stat would also address that. Drought fixes a problem only fixable in this stage- bad setters. With Drought, even if Sun teams fail, Sun cores can prevail. I’m gonna leave it there, as others have said the other upsides of Drought better than I could.
Regenerator I have been liking for a while, but I couldn’t think of a rebuttal to it being genetically good. However, I realized with what Snake said that Regenerator is a fantastic idea for us. It helps reduce damage throughout the match, allowing us to more easily punch holes in Sand walls with appropriate coverage. As Snake mentioned, Grass/Fairy has amazing synergy with Sand teams, so I think it would be ran on Sand. Sand Veil is my favorite of the Sand-related abilities. It helps us be more defensive with our build. It also increases longevity with reducing the accuracy of moves that threaten us. Pair Sand Veil with reliable recovery, and you have yourself a great bulky Sand abuser. Beserk seemed fine, but if Sand doesn’t activate Beserk, I’m not that big of a fan.
Hello! I was talking with the CAP room and we had a great discussion about CAP24's Ability, specifically for Sand teams. We were thinking that Poison Heal and Corrosion could both possibly be good abilities for CAP24. Both of these abilities have one thing in common; both are stall breaking abilities, that can aid Excadrill in its sweeping endeavors.
Poison Heal got the most support from the room, and for good reason. It allows CAP24 to absorb status moves, such as Leech Seed, Willo, and the infamous Scald and Knock off for Excadrill. Think Gliscor, but without sharing weaknesses. It allows us to have a more passive approach to dealing with the 'mons that trouble Sand, potentially a look that we need. Poison Heal outside of Sand would heal us for more, but even inside of Sand it has great synergy, negating Sand's damage on us, and even giving us a little bit extra healing, while having the opposing Pokemon take chip damage. Stall/Wallbreaking is a niche that Sand is sorely misses, and with CAP24's typing it can deny many of the pokes that trouble Sand, such as Tomohawk, and Celesteela. While this doesn't benefit the Speed Control aspect of Sand, Excadrill is still the fastest Weather Abuser that's viable in the tier, and thus shouldn't be the priority of CAP24 to gain speed or such stats from Sand.
Corrosion has similar benefits, particularly dealing with Pokemon such as Celesteela and Ferrothorn, who might consider Excadrill to be status bait for them. It'l slowly wear down these pokemon to the point where Excadrill will eventually be able to break through them. Like Poison Heal, it'l have a more passive approach to eating away at the health of Steel types, not necessarily benefiting from Sand's chip damage on steel types, but it will still chip away at the poison types, even though Excadrill doesn't fear them at all. Corrosion allows CAP24 to not be a sitting duck when in the face of a poison type, and allows it to be more active in supporting Excadrill.
What separates these abilities from Regenerator, is that while Regen can be considered "All-around good", Poison Heal and Corrosion have more defined niches for helping Sand. Both abilities also directly deal with Sand's counters, unlike regen.
Poison Heal got the most support from the room, and for good reason. It allows CAP24 to absorb status moves, such as Leech Seed, Willo, and the infamous Scald and Knock off for Excadrill. Think Gliscor, but without sharing weaknesses. It allows us to have a more passive approach to dealing with the 'mons that trouble Sand, potentially a look that we need. Poison Heal outside of Sand would heal us for more, but even inside of Sand it has great synergy, negating Sand's damage on us, and even giving us a little bit extra healing, while having the opposing Pokemon take chip damage. Stall/Wallbreaking is a niche that Sand is sorely misses, and with CAP24's typing it can deny many of the pokes that trouble Sand, such as Tomohawk, and Celesteela. While this doesn't benefit the Speed Control aspect of Sand, Excadrill is still the fastest Weather Abuser that's viable in the tier, and thus shouldn't be the priority of CAP24 to gain speed or such stats from Sand.
Corrosion has similar benefits, particularly dealing with Pokemon such as Celesteela and Ferrothorn, who might consider Excadrill to be status bait for them. It'l slowly wear down these pokemon to the point where Excadrill will eventually be able to break through them. Like Poison Heal, it'l have a more passive approach to eating away at the health of Steel types, not necessarily benefiting from Sand's chip damage on steel types, but it will still chip away at the poison types, even though Excadrill doesn't fear them at all. Corrosion allows CAP24 to not be a sitting duck when in the face of a poison type, and allows it to be more active in supporting Excadrill.
What separates these abilities from Regenerator, is that while Regen can be considered "All-around good", Poison Heal and Corrosion have more defined niches for helping Sand. Both abilities also directly deal with Sand's counters, unlike regen.
Sand Veil is another Ability that screams "red herring" to me. It's an Ability that really only shines during permanent weather. Assuming CAP24 is used in conjunction with Tyranitar, it's probably only going to be in the Sand for 2-5 turns at a time. A 20% evasion boost is nice, but a Substitute set is really wishful thinking when CAP24 will probably only get two or three opportunities to Sub up and try to play the odds with the Sand Veil boost. This isn't Gen V when Sand Veil Garchomp was deciding games left and right. In fact, look at Garchomp. It commonly runs a boosting move, has access to Substitute, yet greatly prefers Rough Skin - a decent but not great Ability - to Sand Veil. Even in a metagame where Tyranitar is extremely common, Sand Veil is not a great Ability.
We shouldn't overthink the Sand Ability. If we were a Ground, Rock, or Steel-type, the argument for Sand Force might be there. But Sand Rush is the way to go on this one. It all but ensures we're a top-flight Sand sweeper, and we can still distinguish CAP24 from Excadrill by having it fill different roles and abuse Sand in additional ways. Rain teams love using multiple Swift Swimmers, let's let Sand get access to multiple Sand Rushers.
We shouldn't overthink the Sand Ability. If we were a Ground, Rock, or Steel-type, the argument for Sand Force might be there. But Sand Rush is the way to go on this one. It all but ensures we're a top-flight Sand sweeper, and we can still distinguish CAP24 from Excadrill by having it fill different roles and abuse Sand in additional ways. Rain teams love using multiple Swift Swimmers, let's let Sand get access to multiple Sand Rushers.
My god are we really discussing Regenerator? Because when it comes to this ability, I am firmly in the "its too generically good camp". Regenerator is so incredibly good on the ability spectrum, and absolutely has the potential to overshadow our current focus, if not the entire concept unless we are careful. We are already planning to have a decently powerful mon with strong Grass and Fairy STABs packed behind it, and talk of seeming decent coverage options to back it all up. Also considering the potential of CAP24 to be quite fast and/or having decent bulk, I see no reason to use it in a shakey weather team filled with numerous, problematic holes contained within it, and would probably instead use it on a more generic offensive team as a pivot of some sorts with a Life Orb. Sure, it could be seen on a Sand team and could be used there to some success, but I would personally abandon the idea entirely and use it on another team that doesn't have to do with the weather and achieve more consistent results on it.
That's my main issue with Regenerator. Through its mere presense, its whispering "Sure, its can be good on Sand and it helps and all that stuff, but why would you use it when you can just reap the benefits of Regenerator on another team without the risk of Sand".
Anyways, I also don't get Sand Veil much. While it is cool and works in Sand, I don't really see as much more than a haxy gimmick. Hax is a legitimate strategy for those who can do it consistently. Serene Grace Jirachi works as a haxy Pokemon because of Iron Head's flinch chance going to 60%, and combining with Thunder Wave makes it a lot harder for the opposing Pokemon to move (about 30% if I recall). The important thing to note is that this action-lock is fairly consistent, working at least 60% of the time from a purely statistical standpoint, and is likely to be more consistent than that due to other factors. People like consistent results when battling, because it makes them more likely to be victorious. That is why most of us dislike being burned off of Fire Blast or being frozen from a stray Ice Beam, because it throws a wrench into that consistent battle plan and could possibly jeapordize the fate of battle off of a random chance instead of team composition and actual skill. Scald burns work as a possible strategy and tactic of hax because of multiple possible usages giving it a higher affect chance as you continue to use it through probability and the mathematics of Pascal's Triangle. Gen V VeilChomp worked because perma-sand gave it similar time for the effect to occur over its life and had various other measure such as Substitutes and sheer Garchomp girth. Sand Veil in this day and age will only ever be effective for around 5 turns being generous, and the idea that we are relying on an added 20%-30% chance to miss moves is not only incredibly uncompetitive, but so stupid.
Thought on Drought and Chloro later.
That's my main issue with Regenerator. Through its mere presense, its whispering "Sure, its can be good on Sand and it helps and all that stuff, but why would you use it when you can just reap the benefits of Regenerator on another team without the risk of Sand".
Anyways, I also don't get Sand Veil much. While it is cool and works in Sand, I don't really see as much more than a haxy gimmick. Hax is a legitimate strategy for those who can do it consistently. Serene Grace Jirachi works as a haxy Pokemon because of Iron Head's flinch chance going to 60%, and combining with Thunder Wave makes it a lot harder for the opposing Pokemon to move (about 30% if I recall). The important thing to note is that this action-lock is fairly consistent, working at least 60% of the time from a purely statistical standpoint, and is likely to be more consistent than that due to other factors. People like consistent results when battling, because it makes them more likely to be victorious. That is why most of us dislike being burned off of Fire Blast or being frozen from a stray Ice Beam, because it throws a wrench into that consistent battle plan and could possibly jeapordize the fate of battle off of a random chance instead of team composition and actual skill. Scald burns work as a possible strategy and tactic of hax because of multiple possible usages giving it a higher affect chance as you continue to use it through probability and the mathematics of Pascal's Triangle. Gen V VeilChomp worked because perma-sand gave it similar time for the effect to occur over its life and had various other measure such as Substitutes and sheer Garchomp girth. Sand Veil in this day and age will only ever be effective for around 5 turns being generous, and the idea that we are relying on an added 20%-30% chance to miss moves is not only incredibly uncompetitive, but so stupid.
Thought on Drought and Chloro later.
I also want to discourage Sand Veil. It's an uncompetitive ability that nobody wants to play against. I actually agree that it's a better ability than Sand Force, but it just leaves such a bad taste.
5. Does sun or sand need the primary ability?
This question is essentially, if I'm reading it correctly, if we believe that either weather needs one of the following abilities moreso than the other. It's perfectly feasible that we use none from this listing, however we can only pick the one, yes?
Of these, I think we've seen Drought raised for Sun, and Magic Guard and Prankster both raised for Sand.
For Sun, I've been inclined to prefer Chlorophyll when it's been raised, so I guess my stance is that I would rather leave the option of Primary Ability to Sand? Although even then, I don't think it's absolutely necessary, or even particularly desirable (As fun as something like Electric Surge would be for trolling Grassy Terrain and Nature Power Thunderbolt clonking Celesteela).
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In terms of Sand Ability:
I don't think that Berserk is completely sunk by residual damage not being sufficient to push it over - it allows us to be a bit bulkier in the stats stage, and access to Shore Up (or some other sort of big healing) would be more than enough to keep it viable. With that said, I think that it's substantially less viable than it was before TKGriffiths had the good sense to check the ability works as assumed (which, of course, it doesn't).
I mentioned it very vaguely on Discord last night, but Trace feels like it could be an interesting option. Obviously the main usage would be in grabbing Heatran's Flash Fire for a clean switch in, but it also has a few other uses. VS Landorus-T, the Intimidate means we can cleanly switch in (Except vs SSSS, but that nonsense is always gonna OHKO us). VS Tomohawk, stealing it's Prankster could open up a range of opportunities (Priority Healing sounds fun).
One thing I've been considering is Competitive. Competitive provides a similar benefit to Berserk, but with some very specific targets - it lets us tackle Defoggers, and can keep Intimidate using threats (Do I hate Lando-T? Yes, next question) from entering play. Mainly I'm just floating the idea in here at the moment, since I'm surprised it hasn't cropped up.
This question is essentially, if I'm reading it correctly, if we believe that either weather needs one of the following abilities moreso than the other. It's perfectly feasible that we use none from this listing, however we can only pick the one, yes?
Arena Trap
Beast Boost
Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Triage
Beast Boost
Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Triage
Of these, I think we've seen Drought raised for Sun, and Magic Guard and Prankster both raised for Sand.
For Sun, I've been inclined to prefer Chlorophyll when it's been raised, so I guess my stance is that I would rather leave the option of Primary Ability to Sand? Although even then, I don't think it's absolutely necessary, or even particularly desirable (As fun as something like Electric Surge would be for trolling Grassy Terrain and Nature Power Thunderbolt clonking Celesteela).
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In terms of Sand Ability:
I don't think that Berserk is completely sunk by residual damage not being sufficient to push it over - it allows us to be a bit bulkier in the stats stage, and access to Shore Up (or some other sort of big healing) would be more than enough to keep it viable. With that said, I think that it's substantially less viable than it was before TKGriffiths had the good sense to check the ability works as assumed (which, of course, it doesn't).
I mentioned it very vaguely on Discord last night, but Trace feels like it could be an interesting option. Obviously the main usage would be in grabbing Heatran's Flash Fire for a clean switch in, but it also has a few other uses. VS Landorus-T, the Intimidate means we can cleanly switch in (Except vs SSSS, but that nonsense is always gonna OHKO us). VS Tomohawk, stealing it's Prankster could open up a range of opportunities (Priority Healing sounds fun).
One thing I've been considering is Competitive. Competitive provides a similar benefit to Berserk, but with some very specific targets - it lets us tackle Defoggers, and can keep Intimidate using threats (Do I hate Lando-T? Yes, next question) from entering play. Mainly I'm just floating the idea in here at the moment, since I'm surprised it hasn't cropped up.
I personally agree with Chlorophyll as the main Sun ability. It adds speed to CAP 24 that allows it to become more offensive. Another reason is that having the speed in the sun allows it to be more versatile in sand teams.
The question now is that what sand ability to use. I personally am not opposed to running Sand Force, as it allows for a more effective counter to Heatran and others that don't appreciate a psuedo-STAB, super-effective move to the face. Not to mention the secondary effect of creating an immunity to the Sandstorm residual damage.
Another ability that could be considered that allows for a broader use that allows for it to make an appearance in hail teams as well, being of course Overcoat. It is not un-fun to play against, nor does it infringe on demoting this mon to lower tiers, plus it allows for some small usage in Hail teams. I'm not sure whether it should be used as the flavour ability or not, as I am very new here, but I believe that it allows for a more widespread weather usage, thus making it a much more interesting mon to play with and against.
The question now is that what sand ability to use. I personally am not opposed to running Sand Force, as it allows for a more effective counter to Heatran and others that don't appreciate a psuedo-STAB, super-effective move to the face. Not to mention the secondary effect of creating an immunity to the Sandstorm residual damage.
Another ability that could be considered that allows for a broader use that allows for it to make an appearance in hail teams as well, being of course Overcoat. It is not un-fun to play against, nor does it infringe on demoting this mon to lower tiers, plus it allows for some small usage in Hail teams. I'm not sure whether it should be used as the flavour ability or not, as I am very new here, but I believe that it allows for a more widespread weather usage, thus making it a much more interesting mon to play with and against.
I... completely forgot about Competitive. And I quite like it, although I've got to admit that I prefer Defiant for the weakness that Sun has with Physical teams.
Regarding Sun Teams lack of physical, I feel that this is where Flower Gift comes in helpful (provided it's allowed of course). The boosted 1.5x SpD neutralizes the Sun Boost to Heatran, while providing the boost to Fighting coverage that will allow it to beat Air Balloon Heatran. This allows it to act as a Heat Rock Setter if needed, especially if it has the speed to beat a boosted Hurricane.
Regarding Sun Teams lack of physical, I feel that this is where Flower Gift comes in helpful (provided it's allowed of course). The boosted 1.5x SpD neutralizes the Sun Boost to Heatran, while providing the boost to Fighting coverage that will allow it to beat Air Balloon Heatran. This allows it to act as a Heat Rock Setter if needed, especially if it has the speed to beat a boosted Hurricane.
I had been mulling over a few non-weather specific abilities, and arrived at two that might work as secondary in conjunction with a powerful primary ability.
No Guard is the stronger of the two. No Guard has many uses, but the most powerful and useful I could identify is Z-Sleep moves and Inferno burns that help address multiple physical Sand checks. It also fixes the bad relationship a lot of Rock moves have with accuracy checks. It would make Focus Blast a reliable anti-Heatran move that doesn't threaten Toxapex, as well as avoid Leaf Storm misses.
The drawback of course is you get hit by every stray Fire Blast and Hurricane yourself, and the general "generically good" criticism.
Much weaker is Sticky Hold. We have a Dark resistance, might as well use it to preserve Weather Rocks, Leftovers, or Life Orb on breaking sets.
Overcoat also exists but since Grass typing already grants the anti-powder effect, it's like a poor man's Sand abilitythat low key lets you Aurora Veil better.
No Guard is the stronger of the two. No Guard has many uses, but the most powerful and useful I could identify is Z-Sleep moves and Inferno burns that help address multiple physical Sand checks. It also fixes the bad relationship a lot of Rock moves have with accuracy checks. It would make Focus Blast a reliable anti-Heatran move that doesn't threaten Toxapex, as well as avoid Leaf Storm misses.
The drawback of course is you get hit by every stray Fire Blast and Hurricane yourself, and the general "generically good" criticism.
Much weaker is Sticky Hold. We have a Dark resistance, might as well use it to preserve Weather Rocks, Leftovers, or Life Orb on breaking sets.
Overcoat also exists but since Grass typing already grants the anti-powder effect, it's like a poor man's Sand ability
I’m a big fan of No Guard assuming we get the right moves to back it up as it could potentially provide much support for sand teams to cover up their holes. This ability also would benefit the cap outside of weather, however a grass fairy type already has great synergy with the rest of sand teams and the ability to deal consistent damage and cripple many standard counters would only make it a better choice for these teams.
As for sun, I’d prefer Drought over Chlorophyll. As already said, choice scarfs and other means can easily provide speed control (regular teams don’t need speed doubling abilities, why does weather?) however without more consistent setters, the value of a sun team is essentially diminished due to the fact that the sun is hard to keep up. Due to its typing, the cap could already expect to be able to switch in on many threats and not only force them out but set up weather also. Competitive does sound like a neat ability, and deterring lando is always great for sand, but then again it doesn’t provide much else as sand teams hardly stack hazards (yet). It doesn’t help that just about all teams would value a competitive mon to stop lando so it’s nothing too special.
As for sun, I’d prefer Drought over Chlorophyll. As already said, choice scarfs and other means can easily provide speed control (regular teams don’t need speed doubling abilities, why does weather?) however without more consistent setters, the value of a sun team is essentially diminished due to the fact that the sun is hard to keep up. Due to its typing, the cap could already expect to be able to switch in on many threats and not only force them out but set up weather also. Competitive does sound like a neat ability, and deterring lando is always great for sand, but then again it doesn’t provide much else as sand teams hardly stack hazards (yet). It doesn’t help that just about all teams would value a competitive mon to stop lando so it’s nothing too special.
I'm not too keen on Sand Rush. It fits on Sand ludicrously well, but it comes with a couple of strings. Stats stage will be important to etch out CAP24's role. Because Sand really just needs a wallbreaker and because Sun needs more support than Sand, I don't like giving all the power of stats to Sand, especially when it doesn't align with what sand really needs.
Sand needs good Special Attack to pull through its counters (Landorus-T, Tomohawk), but if it's too fast under Sand, you'll have to cut back into Special Attack or bulk. If we cut into bulk, we defeat the purpose picking a typing with good defensive potential, so that's not a good way to go. If we cut into Special Attack, you're only hurting Sun unnecessarily by reducing its power.
Basically, it makes more sense if Sun gets the priority on our Speed stat because we've talked all this CAP, whether it's been moves or Chlorophyll, about Sun needing better Speed control. It makes more sense for Sand to focus on wallbreaking ability, which is what it actually needs. Remember that this concept is two big halves, and any impact on one side will definitely affect the other.
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Instead, I'm going to throw more support behind a couple of other abilities for Sand. First, Competitive seems like a nice ability. Given that Landorus-T and Rotom-W can generally force out Excadril and Tyranitar, it's nice to be able to switch in on the Defog and really lay the pain on the opposing team. Or, if you predict a Landorus-T or Gyarados (Gyarados threatens Sand too) switch-in, you can double into the Intimidate. Also, since Sticky Webs generally weakens Excadril's effectiveness, so being able to punish those is great as well. Kerfluffle can gain momentum on most Sand teams, so switching in on the Parting Shot would be pretty devastating as well. Competitive also greatly improves CAP24's wallbreaking potential, which is definitely something we want. Outside of these circumstances though, it's probably not going to activate, so maybe it's just a mirage in the desert.
I didn't look into Berserk's mechanics when I first posted it, and not getting the boost by indirect damage kinda sucks. But, I still think having an ability that takes advantage of damage taken is really interesting for Sand, and the synergy with Shore Up is pretty nice. Again, it boosts CAP24's wallbreaking potential, so it's really nice.
Poison Heal is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, you definitely shrug off sand residual. But on the other hand, you're stuck with Toxic Orb if you want to activate it reliably, which means you can't really run Life Orb, Choice Specs, etc. There's also having SubToxic sets being particularly annoying outside of Sand. It'd turn CAP24 from a wallbreaker on Sand into more of a stallbreaker, but out of the non-wallbreaking abilities though, it makes sense.
EDIT: After some thought, this ability worries me because it actively stalls out Sand turns and makes you decide between having your ability activate consistently or run an item. Not feeling so great about it anymore.
I'm not a fan of Prankster for either sand or for sun. I'm not scared of a "second Tomo," but what I am scared of is reducing CAP24's general utility. Utility moves will be very nice to have for CAP24, but I'd rather not be worrying about what combination of +1 priority status moves will be broken in the moves stage.
EDIT: Regenerator, if we can get past the "generically good" part of it, has many good advantages that S. Court outlined in an earlier post.
EDIT: Trace is also pretty neat. Copies Lando's Intimidate, Heatran's Flash Fire (this one is HUGE), Excadrill's Sand Rush, Mega Swampert's Swift Swim, Beast Boost, Toxapex's Regenerator, etc. I'm a fan of these.
Sand needs good Special Attack to pull through its counters (Landorus-T, Tomohawk), but if it's too fast under Sand, you'll have to cut back into Special Attack or bulk. If we cut into bulk, we defeat the purpose picking a typing with good defensive potential, so that's not a good way to go. If we cut into Special Attack, you're only hurting Sun unnecessarily by reducing its power.
Basically, it makes more sense if Sun gets the priority on our Speed stat because we've talked all this CAP, whether it's been moves or Chlorophyll, about Sun needing better Speed control. It makes more sense for Sand to focus on wallbreaking ability, which is what it actually needs. Remember that this concept is two big halves, and any impact on one side will definitely affect the other.
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Instead, I'm going to throw more support behind a couple of other abilities for Sand. First, Competitive seems like a nice ability. Given that Landorus-T and Rotom-W can generally force out Excadril and Tyranitar, it's nice to be able to switch in on the Defog and really lay the pain on the opposing team. Or, if you predict a Landorus-T or Gyarados (Gyarados threatens Sand too) switch-in, you can double into the Intimidate. Also, since Sticky Webs generally weakens Excadril's effectiveness, so being able to punish those is great as well. Kerfluffle can gain momentum on most Sand teams, so switching in on the Parting Shot would be pretty devastating as well. Competitive also greatly improves CAP24's wallbreaking potential, which is definitely something we want. Outside of these circumstances though, it's probably not going to activate, so maybe it's just a mirage in the desert.
I didn't look into Berserk's mechanics when I first posted it, and not getting the boost by indirect damage kinda sucks. But, I still think having an ability that takes advantage of damage taken is really interesting for Sand, and the synergy with Shore Up is pretty nice. Again, it boosts CAP24's wallbreaking potential, so it's really nice.
Poison Heal is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, you definitely shrug off sand residual. But on the other hand, you're stuck with Toxic Orb if you want to activate it reliably, which means you can't really run Life Orb, Choice Specs, etc. There's also having SubToxic sets being particularly annoying outside of Sand. It'd turn CAP24 from a wallbreaker on Sand into more of a stallbreaker, but out of the non-wallbreaking abilities though, it makes sense.
EDIT: After some thought, this ability worries me because it actively stalls out Sand turns and makes you decide between having your ability activate consistently or run an item. Not feeling so great about it anymore.
I'm not a fan of Prankster for either sand or for sun. I'm not scared of a "second Tomo," but what I am scared of is reducing CAP24's general utility. Utility moves will be very nice to have for CAP24, but I'd rather not be worrying about what combination of +1 priority status moves will be broken in the moves stage.
EDIT: Regenerator, if we can get past the "generically good" part of it, has many good advantages that S. Court outlined in an earlier post.
EDIT: Trace is also pretty neat. Copies Lando's Intimidate, Heatran's Flash Fire (this one is HUGE), Excadrill's Sand Rush, Mega Swampert's Swift Swim, Beast Boost, Toxapex's Regenerator, etc. I'm a fan of these.
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I would like to make a huge push for Trace. It copies a lot of abilities that are super useful that happen to be on Pokemon that we want to beat. Heatran and Tomohawk in particular are incredibly good for us. The former's utility set basically cannot hurt us aside from Toxic, and the latter especially if we can recover or set up. There are also other Pokemon that can be very handy. Lando gets neutered with an Intimidate, forcing it to switch out into something unless it's packing SSSS. Celesteela also fears us if we can live Flamethrower and Heavy Slam (the latter of which simply involves okay bulk and a thicc design or something), because Beast Boost with a neutral move and a good Special Attack stat can do some real damage and begin a snowball. MegaPert and Excadrill are great too, as we can shut them down completely with the right move. Heatran alone makes Trace a pretty viable option. For those saying "It's generically good," (and this goes for that argument for anything) the abilities that are not generically good are not good enough for Sand to be viable. Sand Veil is cheap, Sand Rush screws with our stats and Sand Force is just mediocre. Trace also isn't particularly good on any old Pokemon to begin with anyway, so I think Trace is fine in that regard. Those who say "Kril has it but doesn't use it, why would this be different," I say this. Kril can only viably use LO Magic Guard due to its low firepower. It needs the boost to function. Also, we have a lot more reasons to run Trace than Kril does, especially on Sand, where a lot of the Pokemon Trace crushes (Heatran, Steela, etc) often beat Sand. As such, Trace seems like a very good idea to me.
With the second paragraph, the issue with running Drought is that it boosts a weakness, and it cannot be used in sand teams as easily due to, in singles at least, needing someone to swap in a sand setter, which may not be considered smart against a Grass/Fairy
While I could agree about how Trace and Regenerator can be useful for CAP24, I don't get how they can help Sand since it needs of a wallbreaker.
Ok, we can use Sand Force Exca, but then we are out of a sweeper and I don't that a simple scarfer will be enough to complete the core.
That's why I support No Guard.
Also, both Competitive and Berserk require specific situations to activate themself so they will not always be useful
Ok, we can use Sand Force Exca, but then we are out of a sweeper and I don't that a simple scarfer will be enough to complete the core.
That's why I support No Guard.
Also, both Competitive and Berserk require specific situations to activate themself so they will not always be useful
Serene Grace could be turned towards wallbreaking, given the right movepool.
Seed Flare is probably too much, but Fiery Dance giving +1 SpAtk 100% of the time and Moonblast inflicting -1 SpAtk on opponents 60% of the time seem realistic and useful.
Also just had a thought that Triage is an interesting form of speed control. We could have STAB priority in Giga Drain/Horn Leech and Draining Kiss, along with priority Shore Up/Synthesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight. Maybe even Drain Punch for coverage.
I haven't given these much thought as to how they pertain to either weather, they do seem very niche but if anyone else wants to play around with them feel free.
Edit: Just want to point out that Trace doesn't help at all vs Celesteela, given how Beast Boost works it will do precisely nothing until Celesteela is already dead.
Seed Flare is probably too much, but Fiery Dance giving +1 SpAtk 100% of the time and Moonblast inflicting -1 SpAtk on opponents 60% of the time seem realistic and useful.
Also just had a thought that Triage is an interesting form of speed control. We could have STAB priority in Giga Drain/Horn Leech and Draining Kiss, along with priority Shore Up/Synthesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight. Maybe even Drain Punch for coverage.
I haven't given these much thought as to how they pertain to either weather, they do seem very niche but if anyone else wants to play around with them feel free.
Edit: Just want to point out that Trace doesn't help at all vs Celesteela, given how Beast Boost works it will do precisely nothing until Celesteela is already dead.
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