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

[TKGriffiths]

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.

This is a great point. This typing has always been about defensive merits - it doesn't inherently benefit from either weather at all outside of STAB Solar Beam/Blade. (Which I consider to be poor, almost unviable moves; as previously discussed I question whether being strongarmed into putting one of these on a set instead of Power Whip/Leaf Storm/Energy Ball is even a benefit at all.) Yet all we're talking about with Chlorophyll are hyper offensive sets which it's typing is ill equipped to provide.

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.

Ok, but Pelipper has STAB Hurricane and STAB Water moves to abuse its own weather. Given CAP needs to actually abuse sun (not just provide it) in order to fulfill the concept, I can only see this being done with Growth or powerful Fire-type coverage. I want to point out that one of these will be required at the movepool stage if we pick Drought which shapes what kind of role it will have.

I don't consider boosted Synthesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight to be enough to 'abuse' sun. That doesn't even bring CAP back to a neutral relationship with Sun, since it actually starts off shooting itself in the foot with Drought due to amplifying its own fire weakness.

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.

Strongly disagree with this. The original concept repeatedly clarifies that this CAP is supposed to abuse weathers for different effects. Sand Rush and Chlorophyll are literally the same ability, and pokemon with these abilities have exclusively been sweepers.

 

[snake]

This is a great point. This typing has always been about defensive merits - it doesn't inherently benefit from either weather at all outside of STAB Solar Beam/Blade. (Which I consider to be poor, almost unviable moves; as previously discussed I question whether being strongarmed into putting one of these on a set instead of Power Whip/Leaf Storm/Energy Ball is even a benefit at all.) Yet all we're talking about with Chlorophyll are hyper offensive sets which it's typing is ill equipped to provide.

Ok, but Pelipper has STAB Hurricane and STAB Water moves to abuse its own weather. Given CAP needs to actually abuse sun (not just provide it) in order to fulfill the concept, I can only see this being done with Growth or powerful Fire-type coverage. I want to point out that one of these will be required at the movepool stage if we pick Drought which shapes what kind of role it will have.

I don't consider boosted Synthesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight to be enough to 'abuse' sun. That doesn't even bring CAP back to a neutral relationship with Sun, since it actually starts off shooting itself in the foot with Drought due to amplifying its own fire weakness.

Yes, Pelipper and Tyranitar can switch-in and make Solar Beam fail, but then remember that we have a really great match up against each of them. The threat of Moonblast deters Pelipper and Tyranitar, as Pelipper has bad Special Defense and Tyranitar is weak to it. Solar Beam won't force you out like Leaf Storm would, so I think it's definitely an option. Growth is another way to abuse sun. Sun-boosted Fire-type coverage pairs well with Moonblast for the most part. One of Growth and powerful Fire-type coverage will probably be required at movepool stage if we go with Chlorophyll anyway, so I'm not sure why that's an argument against Drought only.

"Amplifying the Fire-type weakness so Synthesis doesn't abuse sun" is barely an argument. No Fire-types on the threatlist that we're supposed to threaten actually need Sun to push over the OHKO line. Let's assume 100 HP / 100 Def / 100 SpD, which is extremely optimistic.

4 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Bulu: 270-320 (79.1 - 93.8%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and trapping damage
252 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Bulu: 326-386 (95.6 - 113.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after trapping damage
252 SpA Blacephalon Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Bulu: 404-476 (118.4 - 139.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Blacephalon Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Bulu: 330-390 (96.7 - 114.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Bulu: 452-534 (132.5 - 156.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Bulu: 552-650 (161.8 - 190.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Sun-boosting these moves makes these even better OHKOs, but that doesn't make a difference. They already pretty much KO CAP24 even assuming very good defensive stats. On the other hand, Synthesis heals off damage from switching into attacks that threaten Fire-type abusers, which is positive.

Pip makes a great point about Drought. For a Chlorophyll user, you usually do not want to switch in until it's in a good position to sweep. Considering that Grass / Fairy would like to work somewhat defensively with Volkraken and other Fire-type abusers, renewing sun every time when CAP24 switches back in and sun isn't up is potent. I'm not saying that Grass / Fairy and Fire-types should be defensive, but using their typings defensive synergy to the best of their ability while still performing offensively makes sense. Chlorophyll acts in the opposite way because it doesn't want to switch in until it's ready for a late-game sweep or it gets a free switch-in to revenge kill after something dies. Grass / Fairy just aligns with Drought better than Chlorophyll.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Ok, but Pelipper has STAB Hurricane and STAB Water moves to abuse its own weather. Given CAP needs to actually abuse sun (not just provide it) in order to fulfill the concept, I can only see this being done with Growth or powerful Fire-type coverage. I want to point out that one of these will be required at the movepool stage if we pick Drought which shapes what kind of role it will have.

I don't consider boosted Synthesis/Morning Sun/Moonlight to be enough to 'abuse' sun. That doesn't even bring CAP back to a neutral relationship with Sun, since it actually starts off shooting itself in the foot with Drought due to amplifying its own fire weakness.

I agree CAP24 needs to abuse its own Sun if we go the Drought route, and yes, that will probably require Growth and/or powerful Fire-type coverage (as well as Solar Beam/Blade, although I think those are traps). There are really not many other ways to do so except giving CAP24 the stats to really abuse the extra Water resistance so it can't be touched by any Water move commonly seen in the tier.

However, I wouldn't say a Grass/Fairy mon doesn't have a neutral relationship with Sun at the moment. Whether the Sun is up or not, CAP24 will not be taking Fire attacks. Look at the Pokemon in this tier that typically use Fire attacks: Volkraken, Heatran, Volcarona, Mega Charizard X, and others. These are Pokemon that would OHKO a CAP24 with or without Sun. The Pokemon who rely on HP Fire or weak coverage moves - such as Magearna, Celesteela, Hoopa-Unbound, and Magnezone - are either strong enough to shred CAP24 both in and out of Sun or have coverage moves that destroy us anyway. One of the great things about this typing is that the Fire weakness is already a sunk cost; there isn't a Grass-type in the game that can seriously take Fire attacks in or out of Sun. But there are Water moves - such as Volkraken's almighty Specs Hydro Pump - that can bust through a normal 50% resistance. The Sun will help us patch that up.

 

[Hobie]

Hi, I'd like to bring up some abilities that I haven't seen talked about, but have the potential to help CAP24 immensely. Firstly is Adaptability, which would let CAP24 fire off incredibly powerful Solar Beams (or Solar Blades I guess) in the sun, which would allow CAP24 to deal with Lando much better by having a 62.5% chance to OKO after rocks with Solar Beam as well as being able to OKO both bulky Tomohawk and offensive Zygarde with a Moonblast. The other ability I thought of was Simple which, while admittedly being much gimmickier then many of the other suggested abilities, would allow CAP24 to become a massive threat in the sun if it gets a Growth off. This would allow CAP24 to be able to deal with some mons like Celesteela much easier, given that grass and fairy STAB is nothing for Celesteela.

 

[Drew]

Time for the Primary Ability Slate! It has been mostly agreed that sun is in need of 2 things, speed control, and a good setter, so I have selected an ability to take care of each:

Chlorophyll is the easiest and likely the best way to handle the issue of speed control, as it can help CAP 24 directly utilize a speed boost from sun. This allows us to focus on countering our threatlist and abusing Chlorophyll to its full potential in later stages. Letting CAP 24 utilize Chlorophyll to sweep any teams with the extra Speed could be just what sun needs.

Drought is the other option, taking care of the lack of good sun setters in CAP, and giving sun the boost it could need. Additionally, it has been noted that our speed control problem could be accounted for in the stats or movepool stage, and the boost to Fire-type attacks and the instant Solar Beam/Blade can make wallbreaking easier.

Additionally all discussion on sun abilities is banned until the poll closes, but discussion on sand abilities is still allowed and encouraged!

Edit: Drap is not doing his +1 or -1 for this poll.

 

[Hobie]

Looking at the discussion the three main sand-abusing abilities that seem to be the most popular are Sand Force, Sand Rush, and Trace, all of which I am fine with and think would work well on a sand abuser, but I would like to suggest 3 more. The first is Pixilate, which should be pretty obvious as to why a fairy type would like it. This would make it easier to hit Tomohawk hard, as well as being able to hit Tapu Bulu and Lando-T harder. The ability I am the least sure of is Sheer Force, which would help CAP24 greatly (as it would most any mon), but I worry that it would just be too generally good. The ability I think would be the best is Technician, which allows CAP24 to hit 3 of the 4 mons we want CAP24 in Sand to check with a quad effective Technician boosted Hidden Power (Heatran, Lando-T, and Tapu Bulu), and would potentially make other moves viable, notably increasing the movepool of CAP24.

 

[SunshineFuture]

Frankly, I don’t see the purpose of Pixilate. It seems like a generically powerful ability with no real application in Sand, especially since most of the things (if not all) are Steel-type. Sheer force is godawful imo. It simply is just way too powerful and runs the risk of upsetting checks.

EDIT: Technician HP Ground is Earth Power with a new coat of paint, thus beating Toxapex. No thanks. (Had a whole thing typed out for Technician but strikethrough doesn’t exist on mobile. :P)

 

[Quanyails]

Modpost

Drought has been selected as our ability for Sun! In place of Drew's absence for the night, I'm here to announce that you may now discuss abilities freely again.

 

[david0895]

I agree with Revi, these abilities are just genererically good (at least) and don't provide any specific utility into the Sandstorm.

Also I would like to suggest Magic Guard, since I still think that CAP24 needs of an ability that will help it to wallbreak things.

Pros:
- No chip damage from Sandstorm/hazards (this can free the recovery slot, leaving us the choice of a fourth coverage or a boosting move)
- No damage from status (this will allow it to stay against walls that carry Toxic)
- No damage from Life Orb (very good for a breaker)
- Can be used outside of the Sand (imporant part for the concept)

Cons:
- Doesn't boost any kind of damage (this will force it most of the times with Life Orb or Choice Band/Specs for having a good damage output)

Quanyails notified me that this ability is banned for the secondary slot, so I will continue to support Sand Rush and Sand Force, since they are the only one that are always useful on Sandstorm

 

[Sereg]

I still prefer Sand Force,and Sand Rush isn't bad.

Of course, as we want a special wallbreaker, if we aren't giving an ability that removes sand damage, then we're presumably going to be healing to get rid of sand damage anyway, so I think it's worth at least considering Flare Boost. You take damage from it, but people would normally be happy to eat Life Orb damage anyway, we're going to need to deal with sand damage anyway, it lets us be a status absorber and pull off strong special attacks while also being less vulnerable to knock off. Sounds like a good way to deal with special walls to me. Also, if you run something other than Flame Orb, it makes your opponent slightly more hesitant to spam fire moves against you. which is nice with our typing.


EDIT:

Also, while it's not my favourite, I do see the appeal of Berserk, though, if we're going that direction, we could also consider Overgrow or even Blaze due to our fear of Steels.

 

[TKGriffiths]

Flare Boost

I don't think Flare Boost is a viable ability. The boost is barely more than Life Orb, Flame Orb takes a turn to activate, and the ability forces CAP into a Flame Orb set if it doesn't want to have a useless ability. Plus Flare Boost just isn't as good as Guts, the big draw of Guts is immunity to the burn attack drop which doesn't affect SpAtk anyway. That and Facade for which there isn't a SpAtk equivalent.

Even the Knock Off thing is questionable, because you can't switch into it if you haven't already spent a turn activating Flame Orb earlier.

 

[david0895]

Also, while it's not my favourite, I do see the appeal of Berserk, though, if we're going that direction, we could also consider Overgrow or even Blaze due to our fear of Steels.

All of these abilities require that CAP24 will be at least with half of its HP, leaving them useless for most of the time.
Also I copy all what TKG said

 

[SunshineFuture]

Blaze and Overgrow are simply too situational to be usable imo. The HP requirement is simply too much to make them any good for Sand OR outside of sand. Flare Boost is interesting, as it’s Special Guts, but I don’t see a specific use for Sand aside from “it breaks things better”. Magic Guard is honestly too powerful for what we want Sand to do imo. Nobody’s going to use it in Sand precisely because of the Life Orb implications. The only abilities I’ve seen for Sand I would be okay with are Trace and Sand Rush. I prefer Trace any day of the week, but I’d live with Sand Rush.

 

[Y Parahax]

It seems like Trace is like Regenerator in that it is a generally good ability that doesn't incentivize the use of Sand with it. Snake_rattler listed off a bunch of things that Trace could be used for earlier, but all of that could be done without being on a sand team and taking chip damage. I think that Sand Rush is the best ability that can actually make use of the sand, which is what we actually set out to do, make a Pokemon that is meant to abuse both sun and sand.

 

[Project_Mars]

Man this is starting to remind me of Water Veil Naviathan. A straightforward but rather boring answer to what we are looking forward to accomplishing with an ability for this project. The only difference is that unlike Water Veil, Sand Rush does do a better job of solving the issue that we gave it... but similar to back then, I do think there is probably a better answer to this question, one that doesn’t retread the same ground as Excadrill, that could be found. (Because Sand Force ain’t really that effective when one of the typings it boosts isn’t a good coverage type to use due to how much it would deal to Toxapex.)

 

[pastafari]

How about Storm Drain?

Pros:
-Threatening Ash-Greninja, as well as most water types that can threat the rest of the typical sand core (Ttar, Exca)
-Increases our Special Attack on a switch.
-It is an alternative to other already mentioned abilities that are not that optimal, such as Sand Force and Berserk.

Cons:
- It may look as a "simply good" Ability.
- It's kind of contradictory with "Pex counters CAP24", given certain coverage from CAP24. Anyway, Pex can haze off the boost is the situation occurs.

 

[SunshineFuture]

Storm Drain seems very unnecessary. The reason we went with a Grass-type is because it resists both Water and Ground. As such, Storm Drain basically invalidates our type. If we were Electric/Flying, I would have been much more open to this, but it seems pointless.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

Defiant; Landorus-T and the combination of encouraging Sand-based Teams to set Stealth and other Hazards will mean that Defoggers like Tomohawk would get penalized. Also to a lesser extent covers Intimidate Cawmodore and Pre-Mega. Competitive can work here for the same reason, if we want to go more Special on a Sand Team, especially given the Intimidate users, but as Sun Team has a lack of Physical, I placed Defiant as the more easily suggested one.

Dancer; between Dragon Dance, and Sword's Dance, Charizard-X, Tapu Bulu, Marowak-A, Kartana all use it. Our counters, M-Venusaur, Toxapex, and Pyroak don't use it, M-Scizor/Pinsir have SE priority, Excadrill can outspeed in sand. I'd have suggested Unaware, but feel that ignoring the offense is too much.

Refrigerate; 3 of our mon we intend to counter as Sand are particularly susceptible to ice, those who are countering us are at neutral to Ice at worst. Given that Ice Coverage would have been a thing in any case, even through HP Ice, and that Mega Pinsir is going to have Aerilate Priority, it's still a check. There are several mon we want to threaten who are neutral to Ice, but resist our others (Cawmadore, Marowak, Celesteela, Kartana). Antarctica is a desert, so I don't see a problem with this overmuch.

 

[Panic Station]

9:07 PM] KnightsofCydonia: why is it seeing someone back fairy/flying, my first thought is "I know one way to make it broken"
[9:09 PM] KnightsofCydonia: though it's a method that could probably be applied to various typings
[9:10 PM] S.Court: Which would be this way? .3.
[9:10 PM] DetroitLolcat: There's one Electric-type who kicks ass on Rain and its name is Tapu Koko
[9:10 PM] DetroitLolcat: Zapdos in Rain is not a thing
[9:10 PM] KnightsofCydonia: it's polljumping atm, so i won't say until I can officailly say "maybe we don't do this"
[9:11 PM] DetroitLolcat: Polljumping is fine in Discord
[9:11 PM] DetroitLolcat: just not on forum
[9:11 PM] KnightsofCydonia: storm drain
[9:11 PM] DetroitLolcat: STORM DRAIN
[9:11 PM] DetroitLolcat: badass
[9:12 PM] KnightsofCydonia: storm drain on a sand or sun team would quickly break open a doubles game
[9:12 PM] KnightsofCydonia: especially when facing a rain team

 

[reachzero]

So, a major question of this phase is "why would I use Sand?", and the now closely attached question of "why wouldn't I use Sun?" A Pokemon with the typing of CAP 24 and with Drought is likely to be very splashable, which makes this something of an arms race between Sun and Sand if the Sand ability is to be seen at all. One reason to use Sand would be that Sand does well against Sun, and one reason to use non-Sun CAP 24 would be if non-Sun CAP 24 does well against Sun teams--which leads directly into suggesting Flash Fire. Flash Fire would allow CAP 24 to do very well against Drought CAP 24 as well as becoming the very best switch into the most dangerous Sun Pokemon, Volkraken. It is this ability to switch into dangerous things like Blacephalon and Volkraken that give Flash Fire the edge over other, more discussed excellent choices such as Trace. It would also simplify teambuilding for Sand immensely by removing the need to have an additional Water or Dragon type to take on Volkraken. It would preserve the great matchup against Heatran that is one of the best features of Trace, and further solidify CAP 24 as a great "glue" Pokemon for Sand.

 

[pastafari]

Storm Drain seems very unnecessary. The reason we went with a Grass-type is because it resists both Water and Ground. As such, Storm Drain basically invalidates our type. If we were Electric/Flying, I would have been much more open to this, but it seems pointless.

But the main point here is use Storm Drain as an offensive Ability. Our Grass type is still useful, as it let us take earthquakes for our teammates, as most of them anyway are weak to ground. Additionally, the Grass typing will still be useful on Sun teams when CAP24 runs Drought.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

pastafari RE KnightsOfCydonia's snapshot, we already resist water, and an Assault Vest is always going to be an option for wanting to tank. Rather than Storm Drain, perhaps WaterAbsorb wouldn't be as bad. There's also another offensive set available with Unburden+Absorb Bulb possibilities, without having something as conceptually powerful as Storm Drain.

 

[Frostbiyt]

I'm not a big fan of Flash Fire for sand. I think that if CAP got Flash Fire, it would be used more on sun teams where it would give it a much bigger advantage than on sand teams.

The difficult part with choosing an ability for abusing sand is just how few options there are for it. There are only 3 abilities that directly benefit from sand(Sand Force, Sand Rush, Sand Veil) and two that get rid of sand damage(Magic Guard and Overcoat). Outside of those five, there are no other abilities that directly interact with sand.

Of these five, I like Sand Force and Overcoat. Sand Force would be good if we got Weather Ball and either a ground or steel coverage move and it would actually directly benefit from weather. I think Overcoat would be a better pick than Magic Guard because, while Magic Guard is a better ability, Overcoat only benefits CAP if sand(or hail) is up so it wouldn't have the issue of having no real reason to use it in sand specifically.

For abilities that don't directly interact with sand, I like the Berserk because of it's potential synergy with one of the only two moves in the game that benefit from sand(Shore Up).

As for a suggestion of my own, If Chlorophyll had been chosen I was going to suggest Analytic, but so much for that. I also wanted to suggest Triage, but it is only eligible as a primary ability. Anyways, the ability that I'm going to throw out for discussion is Stakeout. For those who don't know, "Stakeout doubles the power of moves used against targets that have switched in this turn". I think this would be a good ability for a wallbreaker as it would do pretty serious damage to anything that wanted to switch in to wall CAP or it could effectively trap a Pokemon in an unfavorable matchup similar to pursuit. I think this ability may have the same problem as some of the others by being generically good, but I just wanted to throw it out there.

 

[TKGriffiths]

The only thing Overcoat does that Sand Rush doesn't already do is avoid hail damage. It's just strictly worse, not a serious option.

 

[Frostbiyt]

Obviously Overcoat is not a great ability, especially for a grass type, but I think I'd prefer it for CAP over Sand Rush. I think if it got Sand Rush, it would be competing for a niche that is already filled pretty well by Excadrill instead of filling some other niche that is currently unfilled. That's not to say that Overcoat would allow it to fill any specific niche, just that it wouldn't be stepping on the toes of the few other viable sand users.