CAP 24 CAP 24 - Part 4 - Primary and Secondary Ability Discussion

[SunshineFuture]

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.

The idea is to give CAP24 the stats to be able to kill Celesteela and begin that snowball.

Also, Serene Grace is a bad idea imo, because Moonblast has Iron Head chance to lower SpAtk. Triage is dumb and kind of useless and we already gave it to Revenankh. Please no.

 

[TKGriffiths]

The idea is to give CAP24 the stats to be able to kill Celesteela and begin that snowball.

So your argument of why Trace crushes Celesteela is that CAP won't need Trace to crush Celesteela.

Also, Serene Grace is a bad idea imo, because Moonblast has Iron Head chance to lower SpAtk. Triage is dumb and kind of useless and we already gave it to Revenankh. Please no.

The main move to use it with would be Fiery Dance, as a wallbreaking tool to achieve KOs with a Fiery Dance or two followed by an appropriate coverage move. It's a great way to pressure passive walls, immediately putting them on a timer. It also eases prediction, doing something useful and threatening even when resisted.

Think of Serene Grace as allowing a boosting move and a relatively powerful coverage move in one slot. Such role compression would be useful; given CAP's poor STAB combination it would suffer 4MSS if it had to run a separate boosting move. Moonblast's SpAtk drop is a neat side effect given we would likely be running the move anyway, having a good chance to weaken an incoming Heatran or Celesteela for example making them easier to deal with.

Besides maybe Grass/Fighting, in terms of STAB moves available this seems like the ideal typing to use Triage. Its use on Revenakh is irrelevant, that's a failed pokemon with an outdated concept that the metagame has long left behind. Besides, the fact that another pokemon has the ability is totally besides the point and certainly not a reason against it (nor against Trace/Drought/any other ability for that matter).

 

[Hys]

Serene grace isn't consistent enough to warrant use on a Pokemon like CAP24. It's goal isn't to slowly reduce a Pokemon's special attack, so why would it run Serene Grace moonblast as a main niche? The only pokemon that run Serene Grace use it for the flinch chance, and what flinching move would we give CAP24? it's also reliant on luck, similar to Sand Veil, and based on everyone's vocal support, a lot of people feel like it would be too gimmicky. Fiery dance is also a signature move, so I'd also reckon we wouldn't get that move, if that was the strategy you were relying on. It just seems like Serene grace would be a wasted ability, and if anything, it'd be considered more as a flavor ability than an actual one.

 

[Okamu]

So, I suppose I'll throw my own sand idea into the ring to see how it sticks. I haven't particularly thought much about it, beyond the very basics, but I figured "Hey, there's chaos enough already. Why not?"

Tinted Lens; for those that don't know what this ability does (since the most viable mon that has it is Yanmega), it doubles the damage done by not-very-effective moves. Basically, my thinking for this comes down to this: If you're looking for an ability to not blanket-boost a move's power, but still give a bit of beef to our offenses where it counts, this could be the ability for you. Consider our major threatlist: we want to threaten/beat - Heatran, Mega Mawile, Mega Charizard X, Cawmodore, Ash Greninja, Kartana, Marowak-Alola, Celesteela - Tinted Lens helps us to garner more damage on them if they attempt to come in on CAP24. Suddenly that Moonblast that Celesteela would normally be 5-6HKOed by, can fairly easily be turned into a 3HKO [Note, ballpark estimates from messing with damage calc]. Add on a Super Effective coverage move on to the set, and if Celesteela switches in at the wrong time, it is potentially quite threatened. Similar logic can flow through for Mega Maw, Cawm (though Bullet Punch is admittedly a potential issue), Kartana, and Marowak-A.

Meanwhile, contrast the slightly boosted ability to deal with many of our designated "we want to threatens" with the effects against our "be threatened by." As long as the mon switching in can live the one hit, priority users remain safe checks. Chansey isn't affected at all, since it doesn't resist anything in the first place. Toxapex only has to deal with Moonblast, which is only 5 BP more than Energy Ball (which we may or may not end up with). Steel types suffer a bit, but Magearna is already exceedingly bulky, especially with AV, And the only Poison types that are affected as solid checks are the ones we're faster than, which can be controlled for in stats stage.

As for problems with this, obviously it is just a direct buff to certain hits and it would have to be considered for in stats, slightly complicating things (which I know frustrates certain sneks out there). It could also be considered generically good, though I would point out that that assertion is pure theory, since there aren't really any mons we can analyze with the ability in the CAP meta.
Edit: Additionally, when I went through with some calcs, I only really checked Mage and Celesteela, using 110 since I wasn't sure what we were going with. Snake went through and did some calcing with 125 SpA, and many of the check/counter relationships become exceedingly nonexistent touchy. So, once again, stats would be much more complicated. Doesn't really bother me, since I preferred Trace over this anyways, but just for the sake of completeness. I'm sure snake's got the calcs loaded up in a post soon enough, so I'll just address is as many 40-50%s and leave it at that for now.

So yeah, that's just the one ability I had plop into my mind. Now for rapid fire thoughts on other sand suggestions. Personally I find most of the sand-related abilities underwhelming. Sand Veil I find ineffective and uncompetitive in spirit, Sand Stream is a bit unwise, as Tyranitar and Hippo are pretty fine themselves, and Sand Rush I feel isn't that needed. The one I least dislike is Sand Force, solely because it maintains the more offensive style of wallbreaking I prefer for this ability. Berserk I think would have been great if it counted for chip damage, but alas, it now appears lackluster. Overcoat I would be fine with, though do agree it's a poor man's goggles at this point. Competitive I hesitate a bit on, do to the fact that it only seems to specifically tackle Lando-T on our threatlist and I don't see why we need to lash out at defoggers. No Guard, well, frankly it just confuses me. The suggestion of Inferno as a move to regularly use on a potential Fairy SpA breaker scares the hell out of me (though not in a bad way necessarily). Prankster I think wastes the primary ability slot we should be using for Sun.

And then there were the ones I wanted to go a bit more into. Firstly Regenerator. Good Arceus why? People seem to chafe at the "generically good" argument, but Regenerator is one of those few abilities I think really merits the brunt of it. Putting Regen on CAP24 immediately promotes a switch-out playstyle. Get in some big damage hits on whatever you can, then switch out, heal up, and do it again. It doesn't really matter what you're up against, as long as it can't one shot you from where you are right now, you can safely stay in and whack it with whatever works. There is nothing in that strategy that addresses our threatlist. Regen is just a very good ability people are throwing at the wall to see if it sticks. As Lucario already pointed out, there is absolutely no reason I should stick this Regen CAP on a sand team other than "Well, I guess it was designed for sand?" Do other non-weather abilities suffer from this genericness problem? Sure. Heck, I even admitted that my own suggestion does it. The difference from my perspective comes in that an offensive generic ability allows us to focus more on what we need to hit - our threatlist. A defensive ability such as Poison Heal and especially Regenerator doesn't have that luxury. If it's good defensively, it will be good defensively against all things equally. That buff can't be specifically applied. The variety of "generic" offensive abilities gives us a bit more leeway to accomplish improved wallbreaking with more poignancy.

On to more happier tones though: Trace. I really quite like this suggestion. it helps deal with Heatran, helps combat Lando-T, and outside of similarly key pairings, it becomes much trickier to use. I will however point out that this reduces Alakazam's ability to play as check in sand (Though were we really considering it a main check in the first place? I have to ask.)

As always, critique and comment as you will. TL;DR - Consider Tinted Lens based on how it deals with our threatlist. I like Trace, am meh on Overcoat, and really dislike Regenerator. I think offensive non-weather abilities can be fine-tuned more easily than defensive ones.

 

[Yay61]

For sand specifically, defensive abilities are not what we want. Regardless of being generically good, to actually be a solid asset to sand teams with a defensive ability, the move pool must be expanded immensely and stats also. A significant amount of our threat list we can hardly dent with our main stabs and so we must either have powerful coverage, utility such as sleep or good boosting potential. I think our ability should complement at least one of these aspects so as to ease the stress in later stages. I don’t see how Regenerator is going to help us remove any of the pokemon we want to threaten but rather just increase survivability. I still can see Trace working due to how it specifically allows us to stop landorus and especially heatran rather than other defensive abilities which work decently across the board.

 

[SunshineFuture]

Yeah, I’ve dropped off the Regenerator train. It simply is too much of a momentum sink to be useful for Sand. It switches our constantly is going out, meaning it can’t wallbreak. I’m not gonna go further cause others have put it better.

Also, good lord why are we discussing Tinted Lens? It seems like just a generic ability that boosts power. It seems like a good idea, but then you remember Toxapex, Pyroak, etc. are meant to beat us because they resist our STABs. As such, Tinted Lens risks beating our counters. It just seems like a bad idea to give Tinted Lens. It’s just too good for what we want.

 

[TKGriffiths]

Are signature moves not allowed? Historically, many previously signature moves have since been distributed to other pokemon. Even flavor-wise Fiery Dance seems the most appropriate Fire move to give a Fairy/Grass that's apparently at home in Sun.

I thought about Tinted Lens early on but Heatran x4 resists both STABs anyway so it wouldn't help that matchup.

No Guard seems like a weird idea. The main selling point seems to be Focus Blast which only really hits Heatran, and less effectively than Ground coverage. It's only neutral to Flying/Steels so it's weaker than even HP Fire, meaning they could tank it easily. It also makes CAP itself vulnerable to imperfect accuracy moves, Heatran's Magma Storm maybe being the most pertinent. I think other 50% accuracy moves need to be discussed a bit more if you're going to sell this, because if Focus Blast solves CAP's problems it can be run anyway regardless of No Guard. How about Dynamicpunch or Zap Cannon? No Guard Lovely Kiss could have a niche too, reliable Sleep without being a powder move meaning it could put stuff like Ferrothorn and Pyroak out of commission.

I don't think chip damage not contributing to Berserk is as deal-breaking as people think, the situation of being between 50-56% health at the precise moment sand chip damage happens isn't exactly a condition we can reliably set up. It's counterbalanced by the fact that chip damage from a previous turn may allow an attack to bring us under 50% when otherwise we would have survived with 53% or something. Personally I think it could work great in Sand on a Life Orb 3 attacks + Shore Up set.

 

[escarlata]

I want to bring up Flash Fire because a Fire immunity feels like a definite must in every Sun team. One of the bigger problem I see sun teams having is that many Chlorophyll users feel like dead weight until enemy Fire types are gone, compared to Rain teams which can just send in their Swift Swimmer whereever. Being a Flash Fire user will allow CAP 24 enable the entire playstyle to be "faster" as a whole because you can now send in your Chlorophyll more actively to take advantage of their strengths. Flash Fire actually checks a lot of boxes in terms of the stuff we want to beat to, like Charizard X and Heatran. In the possible case that CAP 24 gets Weather Ball in the near future, a Flash Fire proc also lets CAP 24 to have a really strong pseudo-STAB to break stuff.

Edit: @below I don't think Flash Fire messes with our threat-list as much as you described. Volcarona and Marowak-A are listed as checks rather than counters and even if they take 1 more hit to KO CAP 24, CAP 24 can't really do much in return with its typing so it still loses to them. Charizard Y and Pyroak certainly are affected though, so that does seem to be a problem. A pity though, because it feels a lot like what Sun really needs imo.

I actually like Dazzling/Queenly Majesty too. While less synergetic in Sun compared to Flash Fire, it feels like a strong boon to both Sun and Sand, to have CAP 24 be able to block a lot of what Zygards and Tomohawk can do. This does make us able to potentially beat Scizor though, which we actually don't want, but still something to consider.

Edit: Massively edited paragraph on FF. Also removed mention of Dazz/QM because I just realised priority users are on our threat-list.

 

[EpicUmbreon29]

I want to bring up Flash Fire because it checks a lot of boxes in beating stuff we want CAP 24 to beat. One of the bigger problems that I see Sun teams having is the fact that many Chlorophyll users feel like dead weight until enemy Fire types are gone. Flash Fire allows CAP 24 to always be able to reliably switch into enemy Fire attacks, which allow the entire playstyle to feel "faster".

Queenly Majesty/Dazzling is also a possible choice, allowing CAP24 to be immune to Tomahawk and take Zygarde pretty well. However, this does make CAP 24 check MScizor, instead of the other way round, as indicated in the threat list.

While I do agree with your point that enemy Fire-types can be difficult for Chlorophyll users to play around, I would like to point out that Flash Fire would mess a bit much with the list of things we want to beat us. Namely, Mega Charizard Y, Volcarona, Marowak-A, and Pyroak which likely would go from a 1HKO to a 2HKO on CAP24 (Volcarona, Marowak-A), or just being unable to beat it without running specialized sets (Mega Charizard Y would need Air Slash, Pyroak would need Toxic).

Also, while Queenly Majesty/Dazzling would allow us to not take damage from Nature Power from Tomohawk or Extreme Speed from Zygarde, it will not allow us to avoid Prankster-boosted status moves that Tomohawk usually runs (i.e. Stealth Rock, Haze).

All that being said, I would like to put my support behind Trace. Aside from the aforementioned bonuses of copying Heatran's Flash Fire and Landorus-T's Intimidate, it will also help us win threaten the opposing team more when we come in against Crawdaunt and obtain Adaptability, or when we check Blacephalon and start getting Special Attack boosts. Aside from that, it leaves a pretty healthy relationship with the list of Pokemon that we want to check or counter us. This even goes for Excadrill, as it will still be able to check us under sand. We only become a check to it when we receive a safe switch in on it, which I do believe is a neat added bonus.

Edit: I forgot that Beast Boost will also apply for if we beat Kartana. I admit that beating Celesteela to snowball off of its Beast Boost might be a bit tricky, but do note that it's on the list of Pokemon that we want to pressure or threaten--not necessarily beat outright. Ergo, I believe we can pressure it nicely by making it not want to stay in and get KO'd by us if its health is sufficiently low.

 

[ebrazil2]

I don't think that I quite understand the idea of giving CAP24 having a non-weather based ability. CAP24's concept was based around a weather mon that gave sun and sand an advantage over rain. If CAP24 has a non sun/sand exclusive ability what is stopping people from just throwing it onto their rain team since it is a far superior weather.

Personally I still like the idea of Chlorophyll since it gives sun speed control while keeping focus on weather. For sand I like Sand Force since sand has Excadrill. I also think that Solar Power might be cool giving that extra damage in sun.

As far as non-weather specific abilities (which I don't think CAP24 should have) if CAP24 is to have one, I think that Flash Fire is nice for a sun team since it gives the fire immunity while giving the equivalent of fire stab (if hit by a fire move) and allows CAP24 to switch in easier against Heatran who we are trying to counter. I am strongly against Regenerator though, because when I think of Regenerator I think tank and it was decided that CAP24 should try an avoid stall tactics. Even if CAP24 doesn't use it for stall I could see it becoming more of a hit taker rather than a wall breaker. Lastly, No Guard makes no sense to me.

 

[Birkal]

MOD POST

Do not polljump. Read around the forums more to get a grasp on what this entalis. I should not open up an Ability thread to posts about Stats and Movepool. We will discuss those later. Please keep to the discussion at hand.

If you have questions about the process, PM a moderator. Or better yet, join us on Discord! Lots of friendly people would be happy to help.

And in case it isn’t clear, Flower Gift is hardcoded to Cherrim. Its effects cannot be swapped, and is therefore illegal for CAP.

 

[firesthor]

In my opinion why should someone in the first place use a sun team when its setters arent even good.

why should i worry if sun Cap 24 should have Chlorophyll or Solar Power if the setters cant let you even set sun without sacking said pokemon?
if we really want to help sun as a whole playstile, while being useful as a abusser, as many others have said, Drought is the way to go.

as for sand-related abilities, the direct ones are either useless or too powerfull for our concept, so i think we should stick with an abilty that allows us to help beat out checks but its not too powerfull, like Tinted Lens with that, we could free up our moveset by not needing that much coverage, with some status, or whatever.
or maybe we could use Flare Boost as a option to avoid status while increasing our wallbreaking potential, giving us potentially absurd levels of damage but balanced due being chipped away easily between sand damage + burn

 

[reachzero]

There is a lot going on in this thread, so I thought I would try to bring things back from the 5,000 different things we could do to the rather difficult question of what we should do.

Our goal is to build a Pokemon that benefits from both Sand and Sun. Implicit in this concept is the idea that the Pokemon will actually be used with Sand and/or Sun a good percentage of the time--its viability should be boosted considerably by these Weathers, and its presence should encourage the use of these Weathers.

On Sun, this mission is easy enough--Chlorophyll and Drought are both high-quality abilities that would each make a real competitive impact. I prefer Chlorophyll because historically the +Speed Weather abilities are the ones that have proven to be consistently the best and most threatening on Weather teams, and Sun has no really dangerous user. While I agree with snake_rattler's assessment that Malaconda is a mediocre Pokemon in the present metagame, I also feel that it would be more acceptable if there was a large enough payoff for having Sun up--the threat of a CAP 24 sweep would certainly qualify. On the other hand, I feel that Drought would lend itself less to a full-Sun-team idea and more to the formation of a two or three Pokemon offensive Sun core (similar to how Sand teams work). Drought is a much safer option in that it would be almost impossible for CAP 24 to fail the concept and that you could build teams with fewer weaknesses and so a much higher floor than full Sun teams. On the other hand, Chlorophyll has a higher ceiling. Either ability would be a good choice, and I think there are no other abilities that can seriously compete in usefulness where Sun is concerned.

The really difficult mission is finding an ability that fits Sand. Nearly every post regarding Sand made so far has tried to account for the major dilemma of finding an ability that encourages the use of Sand. I had hoped that Sand Force might be the solution to our quandary, but after running a whole bunch of hypothetical calcs, I found that even boosted Weather Ball didn't do enough to the targets you would want it to hit, such as Celesteela. It is worth noting, however, that Sand Force is superior to Overcoat in every way (except for Hail damage, which is irrelevant)--every potentially relevant benefit we could gain from Overcoat we already gain from being Grass type. Sand Rush is the only truly powerful, highly motivating Sand ability left to us; I am wary of Sand Rush, however, because I feel that having it would prevent us from giving CAP 24 the sort of breaking power that Sand teams actually need; our desire for a powerful attacking stat would have to be mitigated by balance concerns. Chlorophyll would not present this concern as strongly, since Sun teams are inherently weaker, and using Chlorophyll CAP 24 would mean using a Sun setter that is far less viable than Tyranitar. Nevertheless, Sand Rush is probably the most obvious Sand option remaining to us.

When one considers, however, that the goal of our Sand ability is practically to boost Tyranitar(/Hippowdon)/Excadrill, a few abilities come to mind that are not immediately obvious. Several of the Pokemon that Tyranitar and Excadrill have trouble breaking, such as Celesteela, Skarmory and Mega Scizor, are Steel types, and ones that are obvious candidates to switch in on CAP 24. CAP 24 would therefore make an ideal candidate for lure-and-trap offensive support based on Magnet Pull. This sounds crazy until you consider that beating each individual Steel requires non-STAB coverage, and that CAP 24 is likely to have significant 4MSS--many Steels will probably still have an advantage, depending on the attacks chosen, item, etc. (Babiri Berry would be necessary to beat Mega Scizor, for instance). Magnet Pull would provide clear incentive for using Sand: clearing out Steel types that stop an Excadrill sweep, while leaving our Poison type counters as clear counters. We could choose exactly which coverage options we want during the Movepool stage, which would allow us to decide which Steels we could lure and which we never have the option of luring, if balance is a concern.

 

[snake]

Sand Rush is an ability I'm not a fan of. While yes, it is the most obvious candidate for a sand ability at the moment, let's take a minute to review what we've discussed over the past few discussions. Long story short, we've decided sand needs a wallbreaker to crack open common Sand counters, and that sun needs some sort of Speed control. Whether you're for Drought for very reliable setting or Chlorophyll for speed control (I agree with reach's assessment of Drought and Chlorophyll, but I still prefer Drought of the two), we shouldn't be handing Sand the stat that controls our speed. In stats stage, we should let Sun decide what speed tier it wants because that's what we've been discussing this entire process.

EDIT: On second thought, Sand Rush probably won't impact speed stage as much as I thought it would. I can get behind it, as the most viable sand ability.

I'm also not a fan of Tinted Lens. It breaks through a few of our targets, but it also blows past most of our checks list. If CAP24's SpA is high enough, it'll break through Pyroak, which is listed as a counter. Tinted Lens doesn't effectively deal with Heatran either. It would be very powerful on CAP24, but it would be breaking through the wrong list: our checks, rather than our threats.

----

Trace is very interesting. Trace works in CAP24's favor in many situations by copying:

Heatran's Flash Fire - Because CAP24 is supposed to beat Heatran, theoretically, it should only have trouble switching into Magma Storm. Enter Trace, which, on the switch-in, steals Flash Fire and stops Heatran right in its tracks. Heatran should be somewhat afraid of switching into CAP24, so not being able to Trace its Flash Fire when Heatran switches in is ok.
Crawdaunt's Adapatability - Albeit rare, Adaptability is a strong ability to copy when CAP24 should be able to switch in for free against Trick Room Crawdaunt
Landorus-T's Intimidate - helps to tank Earthquakes and U-turns better. Unfortunately, it can't fix the weakness to SSSS, but it's still useful
Mega Latios's Levitate - copying an immunity can be helpful when CAP24 is weakened and might not be able to tank another Earthquake
Kartana's Beast Boost - really, CAP24 could copy any viable Ultra Beast's ability, but Kartana in particular is interesting because if Kartana isn't carrying Smart Strike or is locked into a move that isn't Smart Strike, Kartana risks getting KO'ed by a decently strong special attack, and then CAP24 can snowball. The effectiveness will depend on how fast CAP24 is, but we know how much pressure Beast Boost can exert late-game
Tomohawk's Prankster - if you're brave, you can switch-in and Trace Prankster. Assuming you won't die to Nature Power on the next turn, you pretty much force out Tomohawk, and then you have priority utility moves. There certainly is a lot of risk with this kind of play, but also lots of potential reward
Mega Swampert's (or Kingdra's) Swift Swim - After tanking the Ice-type attack, you can go to town countering the Rain team that's annoying your Sand team
Volkraken's Analytic - Special mention to those brave enough to switch into Volkraken, but if switch into Hydro Pump or Surf, you get a free Analytic hit on the next turn. U-turn would also allow CAP24 to Trace Analytic successfully, but it might not be able to take advantage of that if a counter switches in.
Choice Scarf Magnezone - If locked into Thunderbolt, you Trace Magnet Pull and trap it instead! What it would do is dis-incentivize Magnezone from using Thunderbolt at all with the threat of CAP24 on the opposing bench.

Trace alone creatively takes advantage of our threatlist + more, and I'm a huge fan of that. It's not underwhelming like Sand Force and Sand Veil are imo, and it's my favorite ability for CAP24 other than Drought at the moment.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Am I the only one wondering where the discussion has gone with regards to the Sand ability? There are cool options being put out there, like Trace or Competitive, but the Concept says to abuse Sand, not to support Sand teams. I promise you, as the person who led Volkraken, that trying to support the thoroughly mediocre core of Tyranitar and Excadrill is not the way to go on this project. We want a Pokemon that can take advantage of Sand, and we didn't choose a Typing that does so. That means we can either do so through Abilities or Moves, and it's a lot easier to do that through Abilities.

I'm starting to question if giving Sand more "breaking" power is what we want to do here. There are plenty of good wallbreakers in CAP that can fit onto Sand teams. Kyurem-Black torches all of the Pokemon that threaten Sand, Volkraken does pretty well too. So does Mega Medicham, and the list goes on and on. Instead of worrying about complementing Excadrill, a pretty mediocre Pokemon in the 2018 CAP meta, we should be worrying about taking advantage of the Sand on our own. I really think a Sand Rush Pokemon that can muscle past a sizeable number of CAP metagame threats is what Sand will appreciate more than this mythical wallbreaker we keep talking about. And even if we do go the route of supporting Tyranitar and Excadrill, Sand Rush is still a great choice. Sand does not have a great sweeper or cleaner; Excadrill is much better seen as a utility Spinner that can clean under perfect circumstances. What would Tyranitar appreciate more than a Pokemon that can actually clean opposing teams when the Sandstorm is raging?

Let's not lose sight of the concept. We need to abuse Sand, not try to prop up a mediocre Pokemon that happens to take advantage of it. Sand Rush is the single best - and arguably the only good - Sand abusing Ability in the game.

 

[TKGriffiths]

Magnet Pull

Why would you use CAP to Magnet Pull when Magnezone and Magneton already exist? It has one of the worst possible typings for the job.

I think it's a foregone conclusion at this point that for CAP's Sand aspect to be viable, we'll have to fulfill the 'abuses Sand' concept requirement at the movepool stage by giving it Shore Up. We've established Sand Rush and Shore Up are the only viable options to satisfy this criteria - but we only need one and I'd prefer the latter because it gives us much more creative freedom. Sand Rush is a very one-dimensional ability while Shore Up can be used on any kind of set (except with Choice Items/AV obviously).

Also since nobody's brought it up, let me remind everyone that CAP's concept is to abuse two weathers for different effects which makes Sand Rush incompatible with Chlorophyll should that be selected.

Last line is me bitching that CAP would have satisfied the concept automatically by being Rock/Dragon or Rock/Flying and getting the Sand SpDef boost, meaning we wouldn't be stuck with this dilemma.

 

[david0895]

I agree with DLC that CAP24 needs to "shine" on weathers, so Sand Rush is probably the most suitable for this weather.
Also it can help CAP24 into its wallbreaking job, allowing it to run a Modest/Adamant nature, raising its damage output

 

[Drew]

So before I begin I'd just like to clarify the plan for ability polls. Sun will be the primary ability, and polls shall go as follows: this is the 24 warning for the sun/primary ability poll. That poll will last 24 hours, and afterwords we will leave the discussion thread open for 48 hours to finish discussion on our sand/secondary ability, finally ending in a second poll. Additionally, I will not be banning Chlorophyll/Sand Rush as I don't feel they mean CAP 24 will do the same thing on both weathers, despite having very similar effects.If you are confused on any of this highlight or pm me on Discord, and without further ado I'll put down my thoughts on some abilities:

Sun abilities:

Chlorophyll: Has been discussed since the project started, and I definitely think it has a lot of merit as it can take care of our speed control problem here and now, instead of pinning it on the stats or movepool stage. It also makes it easier to make a good all around attacker as we can focus less on speed and more on just attacking. The main drawback of this ability of course is the fact that we'd need to rely on other sun setters, which can be troublesome as Charizard Y and Malaconda aren't great setters to begin with. This will almost certainly be slated

Drought: The other highly discussed sun ability, I very slightly prefer it to Chlorophyll, although i am fine with either. It takes care of sun's lack of good weather setters, plus gives us automatic bonus power to Fire-type moves, but it does not cover the essential problem of speed control, although that can be handled in other stages. This will also almost certainly be slated.

Prankster: Although mentioned for sand, I'd like to encourage discussion on Prankster, as it can help us set weather, heal, potentially boost speed, or potentially abuse nature power, all things that have been looked at as potential positives for CAP 24. I am not insinuating it is as good as Drought or Chlorophyll, but I would like to encourage discussion on it, as it one of the few abilities with merit in both weathers.

Since the deadline for the sun poll approaches, I highly encourage any suggestions for other sun abilities, as the slate is currently 2 (or 3 with Prankster) abilities and I'm very open to more.

Sand abilities:

Sand Veil: I'm going to start off by saying that I will not be slating this. It yields no advantage over Sand Force or Sand Rush in my eyes bar an uncompetitive, unfun mechanic in evasion, and even if I did slate it, Drap agrees with me on this and would probably -1 it anyway.

Sand Force: This is my preferred direct sand-abuse ability, although I'm not against Sand Rush. It gives us extra power for potential Weather Ball, our preferred Ground move, and potentially Flash Cannon (just examples of boosted attacks), however I still don't think it offers enough raw power.

Sand Rush: DetroitLolcat has been hyping this up on Discord, and I'm still not too big a fan, although I am still open to it. i don't think we need a directly abusing ability to be a sand abuser, and thus I don't think trying to force one is a great idea.

Trace: This is easily one of my favorites, and will likely be slated. It directly covers many of our threats, especially for sand, doesn't counter almost any of our intended checks and counters, and helps shape CAP 24 for now and potentially future metas to come, which I see being a slight problem for CAP 24. All in all I think this helps us counter sand's checks in a way that would likely cement CAP 24 on sand teams.

Regenerator and Poison Heal: Although previously I liked Regenerator, I am now generally against this, as it promotes switching, something that neither sand teams nor weather abusers like to do. On the other hand there is Poison Heal which promotes staying in a lot more, but is still too defensive and hard to get off in my opinion, as that extra turn of Protect can make all the difference in an offensive game, and wasting turns on trying to get healed up is crippling in non-permanent weather. That doesn't mean i won't slate them, I just don't prefer them to, say, Trace.

Berserk: I do like this a bit but not as much as others seem to. The +1 Special Attack boost is cool, and abusing the sand chip damage is an interesting idea, but I don't see it coming into play that often in practice, especially since sand damage doesn't proc it. it would also essentially require Shore Up, Recover, or a RestTalk set, as we wouldn't want to be stuck under half HP for a measly +1.

Tinted Lenses: I don't get the hype around this one. It just seems too generic, and it isn't even very well suited to our checks and counters list. I don't exactly how this would help us beat our threatlist while still maintaining our checks and counters. As of now I'm avoiding it, but I am open for someone to give me a reason to slate this.

Magnet Pull: We want to be checked by Steel-types, just not specific ones. I don't think i can be convinced that this is a good idea.

Flash Fire: Read the above but replace Steel with Fire.

If I didn't mention an ability, it's probably because I didn't think it was interesting enough or it had enough merit, but if you are wondering, feel free to ask me on Discord! Again, I highly encourage discussion on sun, so make sure to keep discussion going!

E: I forgot to mention, Drap and I would like to encourage discussion on the purpose of Drought: is it meant for us to set for teammates, wallbreak, or some mixture of both?

 

[Sereg]

I first suggested Prankster for Sun rather than Sand. It's my second choice for Sun ability after Chlorophyll. Not only does it help get weather up, it gives speed control to both the CAP and allows it to spread that speed control to the rest of its team with the right moves, allowing it to support the entire team.

 

[Askeia]

I feel like Sun being weak as it is, CAP 24 should do more than just being enabled by it, but also give something to it in return. Chlorophyll feels like an ability that just takes a lot from Sun and just offers a lot of overlap with what Sun already does fine. Drought just feels like a stronger choice overall because it actually offers Sun what it lacks instead of power-creeping Venusaur.

Aside from directly Sun related ability, theres only like 2 abilities I really support.

The more I think of Flash Fire, the better I think it is actually. What Sun needs the most aside from a Drought user is a pivot/glue, and a Flash Fire Grass type does that really well. While it's true that we still want Fire types to check us, it was never really properly discussed in the threat discussion thread, and just accepted as it is because "we are threatened based on our typing anyway". Even then, making CAP 24 immune to Fire doesn't mean it's not checked by Fire types though, it still can't really do much back, so it's more of a mutual-checking or something like that, so I don't think it's a massive problem and should be given proper consideration/discussion.

The other ability I like is Prankster because our typing have a lot of useful status abilities that can benefit from it. And it is possible to make sure it doesn't become overwhelmingly useful out of Sun if need be.

So something like Drought = Flash Fire > Prankster = Chlorophyll in my book.

---------

Also, am I the only one who feels that Trace is anti-conceptual? CAP 24 is supposed to abuse Sun or Sand but the only way it can Trace an ability to do that is if it faces an opponent that does that. In other words, it makes CAP 24 an answer to Sun/Sand instead of enabling the archetype. I'm worried that Trace will make CAP 24 less-abusive on weather than we'd like it to be.

 

[snake]

For Drought, I want to clarify that Drought CAP24 will primarily be a sun-setting wallbreaker. Fire-type teammates will appreciate the sun it sets up, offensive coverage, and defensive potential, and CAP24 will appreciate their offensive prowess in return. Drought CAP24 should absolutely have some utility options as well, but not every option.

Think of Drought CAP24 as Pelipper, where it gets some utility moves (not necessarily advocating for the ones Pelipper uses), but can also be an active member of the team aside from setting up Rain. It can act as a breaker and a "setter" at the same time. Think Drought CAP24 also as Tapu Bulu, who supports Kartana by boosting Leaf Blade to absurd levels of damage. Tapu Bulu isn't necessarily running Terrain Extender just to support Kartana; Kartana is just taking advantage of the few turns that Tapu Bulu's Grassy Terrain is up and Tapu Bulu's offensive prowess as a teammate.

Basically, the goal of Drought CAP24 is not to solely support weather teams but weather cores, just as Tapu Bulu supports Kartana. However, it should have some utility as well to make it not one-dimensional.

CAP24 / Volkraken / Heatran (or pick two of your favorite two Fire-type wallbreakers, additional examples are Mega Houndoom, Mega Charizard X) is a potent core that definitely abuses Sun. It abuses Sun in the best way possible with the tools we currently have. The best you can do with Sun in any capacity right now is run Malaconda + your two favorite Fire-type wallbreakers. That's hard to pull off because Malaconda has bad offensive presence, so it has to use U-turn too much, and using U-turn too much means it can't actually pull off any of the utility it wants to.

 

[SunshineFuture]

power-creeping Venusaur.

If we don’t blow Venusaur away in terms of outclassing it, hell has frozen over.

I also would like to give my two cents on Sand Rush. Honestly, I think that it is rather unnecessary. While yes, Rain has multiple Swift Swimmers (though Kingdra isn’t much of a thing), it still doesn’t address the problem Sand has, which is going through things that wall Sand. Trace can get in on Prankster and Flash Fire, allowing us to more easily break through Heatran and Tomohawk respectively. Celesteela and Beast Boost requires more legwork, but it can be done, letting us snowball into a sweep of sorts. Sand Rush on the other hand lets us beat... Scarf Heatran? Excadrill depending on stats? It makes us fast, yes, but I honestly don’t think speed is what Sand needs. It needs a wall breaker. While Trace does not boost power, it helps us better handle things that we wanna best but have abilities that give them a chance to beat US. Excadrill isn’t going to sweep your whole team, but Excadrill does a perfectly fine job with Sand Rush. Sand is also the weather that a team could plausibly have a full team around it, at least more so than Sun. Why would we pick an ability that makes it harder for us to make a team instead of a core? A Sand team with Trace could look like TTar/Exca/CAP24/Zapdos (slow pivot) and two others that are not coming to me at the moment (Reach knows). Even if those are the only Pokémon that work with Trace CAP24, I think we can better stick to the core of the concept by helping to build a team instead of a core for at least one of these two weathers and pick Trace over Sand Rush.

 

[Pipotchi]

For Drought, I want to clarify that Drought CAP24 will primarily be a sun-setting wallbreaker. Fire-type teammates will appreciate the sun it sets up, offensive coverage, and defensive potential, and CAP24 will appreciate their offensive prowess in return. Drought CAP24 should absolutely have some utility options as well, but not every option.

Think of Drought CAP24 as Pelipper, where it gets some utility moves (not necessarily advocating for the ones Pelipper uses), but can also be an active member of the team aside from setting up Rain. It can act as a breaker and a "setter" at the same time. Think Drought CAP24 also as Tapu Bulu, who supports Kartana by boosting Leaf Blade to absurd levels of damage. Tapu Bulu isn't necessarily running Terrain Extender just to support Kartana; Kartana is just taking advantage of the few turns that Tapu Bulu's Grassy Terrain is up and Tapu Bulu's offensive prowess as a teammate.

Basically, the goal of Drought CAP24 is not to solely support weather teams but weather cores, just as Tapu Bulu supports Kartana. However, it should have some utility as well to make it not one-dimensional.

CAP24 / Volkraken / Heatran (or pick two of your favorite two Fire-type wallbreakers, additional examples are Mega Houndoom, Mega Charizard X) is a potent core that definitely abuses Sun. It abuses Sun in the best way possible with the tools we currently have. The best you can do with Sun in any capacity right now is run Malaconda + your two favorite Fire-type wallbreakers. That's hard to pull off because Malaconda has bad offensive presence, so it has to use U-turn too much, and using U-turn too much means it can't actually pull off any of the utility it wants to.

I wanna second this, if we go Drought (which i think we should) it should very much take inspiration from terrain setups- being a great mon in its own right while allowing one or two turns of extreme power for a teammate, rather than trying to focus entirely on pivoting, support, and being a sacrificial mon for the Sun team. Thats super important imo- this route of Drought has no Chlorophyll Pokemon to abuse or anything that needs to be sitting in Sun for 4-5 turns in a row- it has a perfect typing to pair with mons like Heatran, Volcarona, Volkraken or whatever in order to let them click their STABs once and deal severe damage. Thats enough to be successful- and granting the team a blanket protection from some water type moves from mons like Gren etc are a nice bonus. Aside from that, this mon is going to be able to abuse Sun more heavily in its movepool, and be strong in its own right. There should be next to no usage cost for pairing this mon with its desired teammates thanks to both being strong in their own right, and able to work well within the limited Sun. I think that reliability is what makes Drought have an edge over Chlorophyll.

Furthermore, an additional reason why I am not liking Chlorophyll as much- I think this mon in the typing stage was chosen for Grass/Fairy to patch defensive issues for Sun and not just offensive. If we choose to make this pokemon a Chlorophyll sweeper it will likely not get the opportunity to utilize the defensive merits, thanks to needing to sit in the back of the team and maintain its hp to sweep at the right time. I think because Sun barely exists right now (for good reason) it doesnt need a fringe mon that brute forces the playstyle into viability, what it needs is the central figure to pull it together. Drought fits that- it immediately becomes a good abuser through boosting its own moves, and unlike another offensive Drought mon like ZardY it actually can pair a lot easier with teammates that appreciate the weather without stacking typings (in the case of something like zardy + heatran as a wallbreaker) or being useless (in the case of something like zardy+venusaur as a sweeper). This results in a solid 2-3 mon Sun core as mentioned above

Im really not feeling Prankster as an option. I feel like it goes down the route of sacrificial setter. I actually have no idea what a Prankster mon could be hoping to give Sun apart from a mediocre setter to boost a horrendous sweeper like Venusaur. I dont like any ideas that involve being a sacrifical mon for Sun because theres nothing in Sun that is worth sacrificing anything for right now. Perhaps I am missing the point of it though? Nature Power abuse is pretty interesting but I dont think it needs Sun to make that work, not to mention being a very bad typing to pair with something like Bulu.

I also dont like Solar Power because it is incredibly powerful and blasts through every check and counter on the list. If this mon uses GrassiumZ and 120 SpA, it should be ohkoing Toxapex without boosting, and Firium will definitely make Mega Venusaur and Pyroak non-switchins, threatening the ohko or 2hko.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

What I am realizing is that while I think that making CAP24 a wallbreaker in Sun is a bit excessive due to the number of wallbreakers we have, so still having some element of speed control would be preferable over excessive power (again), I honestly don't care which Sun ability gets chosen. Drought and Chlorophyll both address major issues with the archetype, the former dealing with the lack of good setters while the latter can help with the lack of good sweepers for Sun. I still think that I support Chlorophyll more than Drought in the end because we don't need the extra power and I am still holding out hope for Malaconda as a good setter, but it honestly goes either way.

I think in terms of Sand I am liking Trace quite a bit more than most of the other abilities that have been presented. I generally disagree with putting something like Sand Rush on because it doesn't really solve the problem that Sand struggles with: forcing out those Pokemon that wall us. Sure, Sand Rush is good against some mons on the "need to threaten list", such as defensive Landorus-T, but quite a few of the things that we need to force out is particularly bulky in nature and being faster than them really does not help us much. Its like trying to break through a brick wall by sidestepping a lot before hitting the brick wall. Trace addresses this on quite a few threats, most notably Heatran by stopping Magma Storm completely and Landorus -T by softening everything but that SSSS. And sapping beast boost from one of the UBs could also really help us break through other stuff and possibly lead into a sweep as well, which is super helpful.

 

[david0895]

Atm, I'm unsure on the sun ability: both of Drought and Chlorophyll provide great utility to the Sun. I slightly prefer the first, since I think that at least the breaker core needs to be completed.
About Sand, it needs of a breaker and I don't get how non-sand abilities can achieve this, while we can easily give it a setup move, this doesn't help CAP24 to shine on this weather