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What an interesting concept we have chosen for CAP27! In Concept Assessment our aim is to analyse how we can create a CAP which fulfils the concept "Offensive Team Support". Be sure to read through the concept, posted again in the OP, before posting here!
With that being said, I have some initial questions about the concept to get the discussion rolling.
What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
haha dnd joke in the end there throwback to the original name
With that, let's get this started! A small reminder to absolutely avoid poll jumping in this stage. I look forward to reading your posts!
First ever post, please be gentle and tell me if I’m doing anything wrong.
“Offensive Support” as a theme is fairly broad, but I was brainstorming concepts in advance and I’ve got one in particular that might help us narrow it down and give some direction.
Supports can be offensive and also defensive, and the distinction between the two is quite difficult to draw because of the huge overlap. Healing abilities can sustain your wallbreakers and sweepers long enough to take out key opponents, or keep your bulky walls alive for longer; slowing abilities like Thunder Wave can either shut down the enemy’s sweepers, or give your own a crucial speed advantage. There’s a lot of room to work with here. However, there is one area of support that is almost exclusively offense-oriented, which if I’m not wrong has yet to be explored: a Pokémon focused primarily around lowering opponents’ defense stats, making them easier to knock out.
How I imagine this would be accomplished would be through a combination of trapping abilities/moves and Def/Sp.Def lowering moves like Fire Lash, Acid, Leer, etc. Screen-smashing moves like Brick Break and Psychic Fangs could be good, too. I also think the Pokémon in question would be best with poor defensive typing and stats, but above-average speed and a way to pivot out or possibly some form of speed control. This would make it easy to lure in and trap opposing Pokémon hungry for an easy kill, hit them with, say, a Fire Lash before pivoting out and letting another mon finish the job, but difficult to use in an especially defensive playstyle due to its low staying power.
As I’m writing this post, I just thought of another potential idea. I recall that Golisopod can be used as a sort of offensive support under certain conditions; use the threat of a STAB First Impression to force an early switch and kill the enemy’s momentum, then set up hazards. We could go for something similar; a mon whose offensive impact is more imagined than real, who appears dangerous to face off against but is actually far less threatening than it appears to be. It would make itself seem like a threat, but it’s true value would be in its utility.
So the two concepts laid out in this post are:
1) Fast and frail support that traps enemies, cripples their defenses and pivots out before it can be killed
2) High POTENTIAL offensive power, but with more passive utility as it’s niche (hazard setter, status inflicter/curer, weather setter, etc)
Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
Having an intimidating offensive presence can open up 50/50 situations in which you have the agency; you threaten damage on the opponent, and can punish a switch with a free support move and viceversa. E.g. by playing a bit of wish defensive clefable i often found myself unable to switch into a supported ally because the opponent wasn't pressured to switch or make a read and could just punish my switch by spamming a given attack, and i figured how different the situation would've been if i could actually fight back more fiercely (of course it doesn't necesseraly mean wishpass works best on offensive sets, but it exemplifies how being purely defensive can hinder a support). Whereas I recall playing tornadus-t last gen and having an easier time finding defog opportunities thanks to its offensive pressure. And oh how often it bothered me having to switch out against an heatran just to get sr'd on, not wanting to risk the immediate loss of a pokemon of mine. And all of heatran, tornadus and the quoted jumbao and clefable are also backed by some bulk/defensive utility of their own, which made them more difficult to face head on and thus allowed them to more reliably both force switched and use their utility, while still primarely being offensive mons/sets.
Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
First thing that comes to my mind is to tightly pack its offensive prowess while limiting it somewhat, basically giving it good stab base powers and coverage, so that it can get the offensive part of the job done while sparing slots for the support moves. E.g. Tornadus-t usually ran hurricane+ fb/sp (not stab but still) which had really good coverage and power by themselves so that it could run a choice of u-turn, knock off, defog etc.
perhaps giving it limited coverage options outside of its main attacks, should the aforementioned approach be considered. I could see it being a somewhat lazy approach to the matter but it's one nontheless, though it may go too much into the direction of trying to standardize the set (or it's offensive part) on a concept originally intended to be that of a "trickster". Perhaps not narrowing it down too much and not trying to go out of the way to absolutely stop specialized sets could actually go in favor of the trickster concept, though: give it a few decent coverage options that can both add variety to its mixed sets and allow it to go full out sometimes as an alternative, less reliable but less expectable choice.
Hi! I'm not very experienced with competitive battling, so take this with a grain of salt, but-- I know the example of Tornadus was raised, and it seems like the idea of using it as a "template" isn't what we want to do, but I thought it might be worth looking less at what it did (like the ratio of support moves to offensive moves) and more at why it worked the way it did, so we can maybe emulate it on a less direct level?
Something like Mega Lopunny could compress its offensive coverage into only two moveslots - HJK and Return were perfect neutral coverage thanks to Scrappy - and that meant it just had two moveslots free and could do whatever it wanted with them, which is why its "offensive moves" and its "support moves" were just two entirely separate halves of its moveset (and I think some other people here were getting at this as well in suggesting compressed coverage - having STABs that complement each other well and using moves like Freeze-Dry to increase coverage has the same effect: that you don't really need any other offensive moves anyway, so you have as much room as possible for supporting options). Tornadus that choose to use Focus Blast are another example of this side of compression - I think Flying/Fighting is a really good offensive pairing on its own, so again, that just "made room" for the less offensively relevant supporting moves.
But Tornadus without Focus Blast only relying on one "big" damaging move (Hurricane) wasn't necessarily a distinct alternative to that. I think the reason Tornadus sometimes runs Hurricane + U-turn + Knock Off is a matter of compression in another sense - while it doesn't have perfect neutral coverage like Lopunny did, Flying/Bug/Dark was only completely resisted by a few Pokémon in SM's OU: Mega Mawile, Magearna, Mega Diancie and Tapu Koko (and maybe Klefki? was that a thing?). Notably, it's also faster than all of these except Tapu Koko, so it can still U-turn out even in a bad matchup; that's definitely a more productive and proactive outcome than being walled.
In other words, Pokémon like Mega Lopunny and Pokémon like Tornadus both more or less achieve the same thing: compressing their neutral coverage into fewer moves so they have more room for support options. The difference is just that for Tornadus, "coverage options" and "support moves" happened to overlap in a convenient way, so it was never really completely useless in a matchup. In both cases, the Pokémon only spent a moveslot on non-damaging support moves like Defog and Healing Wish after they had nothing more to gain from a regular coverage move.
With that in mind, maybe it would be worth choosing CAP27's type to complement whatever support options we want to give it? Like, we can incentivize using non-damaging support moves like Icy Wind or Knock Off just by giving it an offensive type that would naturally benefit from Ice or Dark coverage. Disclaimer: Mega Lopunny and Tornadus are literally the only examples of this I know. I am a very inexperienced competitive player, and this is a very limited comparison. I just thought it might be useful since I didn't see anyone approaching Tornadus from that angle!
Everything you need to know is I need the name: "Support"; "play a subordinate role to" or "be the physical support of; carry the weight of". A Support Pokémon is one that plays what is often seen as a lesser role, but one that the rest of the team wouldn't function as well without, be that removing items (Knock Off), spreading status (T-Wave, WoW, etc.), environment control (weather, terrain, screens) or healing (Wish, Healing Wish). Doing the little things well is what makes a good Support mon.
Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
By giving compact coverage and a narrow range of supporting moves. Let's face it, it's generally not great to have one Pokémon able to complete all the tasks outlined above, from a player's perspective and from the opponent's. Having only 4 move slots is always an issue with support mons so we need to make them a bit more concise. A good example of this would be Clefable. Able to run Fire Blast and Moonblast as coverage that hits most things for at least neutral and still having two slots for T-Wave and Wish. This example shows how a mon can keep its support role while being able to defend itself/threaten some mons.
Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
Lol, I hadn't read this question before writing that last part. Like I said, compact coverage while still keeping the support roles. That said, it's not all about the moves. Jumbao is ridiculously good because it has pretty good stats and some great abilities. Being able to outspeed a lot of the meta helps it as a Pokémon, but not necessarily as a Cleric. Drought and Trace are two great abilities that can give a big hand to the team (a bit circumstantial in the case of Trace), but I often find myself running a more offensive set on Bao simply because the stats and movepool allow for it. Clefable is (in my opinion) better at the Cleric role because its stats don't let it become an overpowering presence, its defensive stats let it fit perfectly in its one role (yes one role, many potential sets in that role, but most builds will fit the Cleric archetype).
How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
I think I've already gone over this by accident as well. Support Pokémon fulfil a certain role (or two) that other Pokémon simply can't perform at the same level as they can. Defensive stats are a necessity, a support mon that only lasts two turns is generally a wasted team slot. I'm not ignoring the "Offensive" part though; really, good attacking stats will lead to offensive sets being run over the combined ones. I think the comparison of Clefabe to Jumbao earlier was (and is) quite apt; compact coverage, middling stats and a concise support movepool lead to an amazing Cleric Pokémon; compact coverage, great stats and broad support lead to a Pokémon you can play any which way you choose. I reckon Clefable will be a good mon to roughly base CAP27 around.
With so many possible forms of utility and support, how are we going to follow with these elements within the concept of CAP27? Will we give it as much as we can or will we follow a specific path?
Personally I reckon, as mentioned above, a specific path is the best way to go. Too many chefs spoil the broth, similarly, too many support options lead to a confused mess that we'll all regret making.
I think most of the things that needed to be said were already said by all of you guys. After reading everything, I have a pretty clear idea of what we want to create. The most important question that remains is Mr.Panda411's : do we try to create a Pokemon that can do everything at once, or do we follow a specific path and forget about some kinds of supports ? I feel like it's possible to compress almost everything the concept implies in one mon ; is it what we want to do ?
Anyway, as I really can't add anything to the debate, I will save you some time and try to create a summary of what was brought to the table with
1) The answers to Jho's questions (all sentences are quotes, or close to it) (if I didn't quote you, it's that what you said was already said).
2) All the meaningful examples of already existing mons that fall under this concept.
- What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
- From Orig Stall Guy :
According to twash and McGrr's D/P Team Support article, team support "coordinates the strategies of six individual Pokémon into a cohesive unit. Support is used to benefit a team as a whole" (source: https://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/team_support) (read this article, it is very clear and inspiring).
A Pokemon that uses moves to either help its allies or limit the effectiveness of opposing Pokemon.
- From Reviloja753 : Repeatable utility, multiple switch-in opportunities, longevity.
- From Jordy :
A Pokemon that can fill various roles that warrant it a slot on a team.
- From -Voltage- :
A Pokemon that is not necessarily the main wincondition for a team when brought to a battle. They should be able to consistently provide opportunities to sway the momentum of a battle back to the user's side without being an outright pivot.
- From Wulfanator72 :
One might define it as a mon who uses non-offensive moves which benefit the team. However there are many offensive moves that provide similar functionality.
- From YellowAdminSilver :
The support moves usually don't benefit the user, only its team.
- From snake_rattler :
A Pokemon that facilitates its team to succeed, rather than winning games on its own.
- From 20Yelram02 :
A Pokemon that plays what is often seen as a lesser role, but one that the rest of the team wouldn't function as well without.
- Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this ?
- FromSivanandi : Moves that inflict status could both be offensive and supporting, because they could cripple a teammate's best counter or make it easier for the CAP itself to wear down a bulky opponent.
- From quziel :
Very efficient stab attacks, and efficient coverage which let them pose significant offensive threats despite only dedicating one or two slots to attacks. The other slots provide ways to buy time for a friendly pokemon.
- From LucarioOfLegends :
We have to give CAP incentives to actually utilize offensive pressure.
- From Reviloja753 : This Pokemon should contribute something to the team composition as a whole beyond its utility move alone.
- From Mr.Panda411 :
This Pokémon must have enough offensive power to function as a wallbreaker, but it does not play a very clear role as a sweeper.
- From Jordy :
The support side of the Pokemon can also come in play for its pressuring side, as it can dissuade its checks from coming in. (I'm kind of interpretating here, but it's definetly a good point).
- From -Voltage- :
We can find a way to make things work in tandem in terms of momentum.
- From Wulfanator72 :
We could consider taking inspiration from snake_rattler’s One-Hit Wonder Concept by providing one outstanding offensive option and leaving the remaining 3 move slots available to fulfill its role as a support. Anyway, coverage compression is key.
- From YellowAdminSilver :
There are two main known archetypes that can fulfill our goals. 1) A mon with a support role that ensures it can fulfill this role and avoid passivity with the threat of either setup or gaining momentum. The fact that it sets up doesn't mean it can sweep. 2) A strong breaker that takes advantage of the momentum it creates.
- From snake_rattler :
Other from a good offensive presence, the Pokemon's ability could grant it momentum by having its effect linger when the Pokemon switches out. Moves that directly help teammates can also help it keep momentum.
The offensive power should be, of course, limited.
- Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so ?
- From quziel :
(Other similar examples) have efficient stab attacks, and efficient coverage which let them pose significant offensive threats despite only dedicating one or two slots to attacks. On the other hand, they have ways to buy time for a friendly pokemon.
- From Jordy :
They have consistent bulk, typing and recovery too. However cleric jumbao isn't offensive enough to fulfill our concept ; and offensive Clef and Jumbao don't support their team too much.
- How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other ?
- From Karoshi :
Doing both roles at the same time with some specific moves can give a solution to this problem.
- From NumberCruncher :
We need a good relationship typing/stats. An offensive typing should be balanced with good bulk ; a defensive typing should be balanced with more offensive stats. The ability can come in play for those purposes.
- From leonard (from big bang theory) :
A balance needs to be found between enough offensive presence and a bulk/speed balance that makes a purely defensive or offensive approach suboptimal. Abilities/moves would influence this heavily.
- From Jordy :
Being sustainable without wasting turns. Beyond that, we need to make sure CAP27 can get many turns to switch into play and apply pressure, and grab momentum for its team in some way.
- From YellowAdminSilver :
We need to limit CAP's offensive capabilities in a way that its support capabilities are not used only to support itself.
- From snake_rattler :
There is always a risk. If we mess up, it would probably be better if the support side overwhelms the offensive side that the opposite.
- Overall, Balance between all stages of the project is the unanimous idea.
- Good examples that might come in handy in the future :
- From Reviloja753 :
The Cryogonal example shows that the offensive side requires speed and maybe a typing that is more offensive than defensive to work as we want it to do. (This is close to Poll Jumping, but I'm just quoting).
Alright, I just want to clear this up. I absolutely did not say our type had to be more offensive than defensive, and anyone who thinks otherwise clearly did not understand what I was doing with my post. I was just stating that Ice, the absolute worst defensive type in the game and a decently strong offensive type, was more offensive than defensive. Furthermore, we should not follow the exact same structure as Cryogonal in terms of typing, stats, and ability. Rapid Spin being the utility or one of many is an entirely different conversation to have, which I’m sure we will have later in this thread. Following the exact blueprint of a Pokémon does not teach us anything. We absolutely should take what all of the Pokémon mentioned in this thread teaches us and use it to make a Pokémon that fulfills the concept, but following a specific Pokémon’s blueprint is not what we should do.
Alright, I just want to clear this up. I absolutely did not say our type had to be more offensive than defensive, and anyone who thinks otherwise clearly did not understand what I was doing with my post. I was just stating that Ice, the absolute worst defensive type in the game and a decently strong offensive type, was more offensive than defensive. Furthermore, we should not follow the exact same structure as Cryogonal in terms of typing, stats, and ability. Rapid Spin being the utility or one of many is an entirely different conversation to have, which I’m sure we will have later in this thread. Following the exact blueprint of a Pokémon does not teach us anything. We absolutely should take what all of the Pokémon mentioned in this thread teaches us and use it to make a Pokémon that fulfills the concept, but following a specific Pokémon’s blueprint is not what we should do.
Before you passive-aggressively claim I was poll jumping, make sure you actually know what my post was about.
Okay. I was mainly bouncing off Discord before deciding what to put here. Like with many of our concepts, I think it helps to decide what we don't want and then to work out how to avoid that. That said, I will try to provide some answers to these questions.
What constitutes a support Pokémon?
A support Pokémon is one that instead of directly defeating the opponent's team itself, alters battle conditions to be more favourable for its teammates and/or less favourable for its foes. There are many ways of doing this, such as changing field conditions (hazards, weather, terrain, rooms, gravity, tailwind, water sport, screens, etc.), aiding in another teammate entering the field (through pivoting, suicide moves, hazard clearing etc.), healing teammates (wish, heal bell, etc.), lowering enemy stats, (pseudo)phasing, trapping and inflicting status.
Support Pokémon typically give up offensive pressure in order to support their teammates, which is not conductive to making an effective offensive Pokémon. How can we work around this?
This is where "what don't we want?" starts coming into play. We don't want something that doesn't run an attacking move. How do we stop that? Firstly, we have to make sure our CAP is too vulnerable to Taunt to forgo attacking moves. Secondly, we have to give it a way to do decent enough damage for attacking to be attractive. This means a strong move-attack stat/special attack stat combo so that when we attack, we can make our opponent feel it, allowing us to break, or at least dent, important walls.
How do we incentives CAP27 to be an offensive support Pokémon, instead of spending into one or the other?
Here is the other place where "What don't we want?" is important.
I already discussed how to prevent speccing into pure support.
As for preventing speccing into offense, there are a few things we don't want. We don't want a sweeper. We don't want an all out attacker. We don't want something choiced.
Because we don't want a sweeper, we should avoid setup. We should especially avoid speed-boosting. That is too much risk for a setup sweeper. It also means we need low "sweepiness" in our stats, which basically means being fast is dangerous.
Because we don't want an all out attacker, we should be careful with coverage, making sure that running too many types of attacks results in merely having redundant coverage.
Because we don't want something choiced, we have to avoid having any attack be too spammable. We have to make sure all available attacks are ones you don't want to be choice-locked into.
Such an intriguing concept. Well done Voltage! Here’s my take on our questions.
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What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
One idea is to make our offensive Pokémon have an ability that passively makes it supportive in nature.
Magic Bounce on Hatterene was cited earlier as an example of an offensive support mon as its ability deters all manner of non-attacking options, namely hazards and status. Hatterene does not forfeit any offensive momentum as it supports its team, because its ability is passive.
The same would by true of weather / terrain setting offensive mons like Specs Pelliper or Tapu Koko who switch in, passively set up by virtue of their abilities, and their presence is felt even after leaving the field.
Another idea that jumps out to me is the most literal interpretation: potent attacking moves with guaranteed secondary effects; Knock Off, Rock Tomb, Mystical Fire, Spirit Break, Lunge, Apple Acid and Fire Lash are all examples of great supportive offensive moves, by either making the opponent lose their item or lowering their stats. Brick Break and Psychic Fangs could also fall into this category by virtue of their ability to take down opposing screens, although that’s more niche.
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Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
I think this comes down to the mons Jumbao and Clefable allow in, vs what they threaten out. Jumbao invites in Fire and Poison types so putting Healing Wish on it naturally helps bring in something like Excadrill, who threatens both Fire and Poison types, simultaneously healing it and keeping up offensive momentum.
Also, I think its important to establish how our mon’s offensive capabilities augment its supportive role.
Here’s a great example of this concept: Glare Zygarde, its strong ground STAB deters Electric types from switching in, yet only Electric types are immune to Paralysis. Therefore, Glare becomes particularly effective on a mon with a Ground STAB, specifically because Electric types do not want to switch into it.
Another example: Toxic Spikes Nidoqueen, who has a Ground STAB to deter Poison types from switching in to absorb its TS.
Offensive capabilities that complement its support. Call it having a “synergistic Supportive STAB.”
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“How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?”
To me, the best way to achieve this is to give our mon good attacking power, strong enough to kill or scare things out, but lacking in coverage enough that it has well defined defensive checks.
However, this is where the “support” portion comes into play, wherein we give our mons supportive options that allow it to mess with its switchins, while not necessarily being able to beat them 1V1. A good example of this I would cite would be Sallazle, having strong dual STABs in Flamethrower and Sludge Wave compounded by a 117 sp attack and even Nasty Plot, yet being entirely walled by Toxapex and Heatran. Yet Sallazle is uniquely able to Toxic them both by virtue of Corrosion, which helps its teammates when they share checks. In this instance CM Clefable would benefit from both Heatran and Toxapex being statused.
First of all, this is my first time in a Concept Assessment thread, so I apologize if I'm breaking any rules or polljumping by accident.
Support Pokémon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokémon. How can we work around this?
How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokémon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
I decided to look around on Smogon for sets that fit the bill of "offensive team support", and here's what I found:
SS OU Cinderace: The "offensive" part is used to threaten out the opponent, giving it time to support the team with Court Change or Taunt. It doesn't use any boosting moves -- which, as several others have pointed out here, is important to prevent it from falling into sweeper territory. The team support it packs gives a decisive advantage to the user's team with a single use, which is important; a Pokémon that wants both power and speed will have to necessarily cough up on longevity.
SS OU Excadrill: Although the set is described as "utility", it's packing heat with Earthquake off a fully-invested Attack stat. Excadrill definitely leans more towards the offensive side of offensive utility, being described as a wallbreaker and sweeper that can also set up and remove hazards if it needs to. Excadrill's support impacts the entire team, but not itself as much, due to its resistance to Stealth Rock. The speed boost granted by Rapid Spin this generation could potentially make things dangerous for balance, letting our "utility" Pokémon turn into a full-on sweeper.
Some others listed by other users would include SM OU Tornadus-T and SS OU Hatterene. Tornadus's "Offensive Z-Move" set has been covered at length already. Hatterene's Trick Room is about as decisive as you can get for a single support move, and it uses it in conjunction with Magic Bounce to both dish out damage and provide opportunities to itself and its team to sweep.
There are also a few sets that fall on the more supportive side of things that I looked at:
SM OU Rotom-Wash: Though Rotom is forced to carry at least one high-power STAB move, its "Defensive" set is more based around generating momentum and opportunities for its teammates. It shows us that team support isn't necessarily just based around hazards or status; it can be based around more intangible things as well, like momentum. An offensive support Pokémon that took cues from Rotom might spread status early in the game, using its powerful STAB moves to threaten anything trying to stop it, then pivot out to a teammate who now has a great opportunity to sweep. Rotom isn't necessarily a good example, though, as it also has a very viable pure offense set. A CAP in this vein would have to dial back its offenses somewhat, to ensure that its powerful moves would be used more to threaten opponents than wallbreak.
SM OU Jirachi: Its "Stealth Rock" set reminds me a bit of what the CAP concept is trying to accomplish. The set is designed primarily for support, but does so in an offensive way; Jirachi uses Stealth Rock and its weak Iron Head to try and get chip damage on the opposing team, then uses its slow U-Turn to generate momentum, or Healing Wish to replace itself with a sweeper than can set up on the now-weakened opponent. This shows us where a CAP like this could potentially be most appreciated: on offensive teams that want opportunities to set up, which the CAP performs without sacrificing momentum.
Overall, important qualities for an offensive support Pokémon seem to include:
Utility moves that provide a sizeable advantage to the entire team with a single use.
A powerful move or two, preferably with good (but not perfect) coverage overall, that lets it threaten out an opponent, giving it a free turn to use its support methods. This is more important for ones that are fast and fragile, rather than bulky attackers.
The support provided helps the rest of the team more than itself; otherwise, the Pokémon risks becoming too offensive.
No good boosting moves, as those make the Pokémon function too well as a sweeper.
If the Pokémon is slow, a focus on momentum to help generate setup opportunities for teammates.
Hi again.
Just dropping my two cents to generate some discussion about two ideas that I've seen in the thread and that I disagree with: that the CAP should not have access to setup; and that it shouldn't use a Choice item. Hide tags because I'm insecure about my inability to summarize.
On the topic of setup, I agree that making CAP into a wincon would go contrary to the concept, but there are ways to give it setup moves that avoid passivity without giving it mad sweeping potential. In this case we could aim for giving it setup moves that enable it to fulfill its main supportive role; the examples that come to my mind are the dedicated hazard setters that I mentioned earlier such as SD Garchomp, Terrakion and Rhydon/Rhyperior in lower tiers. Granted, this is a limited role but it could be explored with different support moves in place of hazards if we wanted to. This could also allow us to opt for a stallbreaker, which is another role that could fit the concept. The parallel that I find is Gliscor, whose attributes are mostly defensive and has support options up the wazoo that allow it to be a dedicated stallbreaker, SD holepuncher, hazard setter, hazard remover or general utility mon on different sets, but never all at once.
The obvious caveat is the possibility of inadvertedly making an offensive sweeper set that overshadows any utility options, but I feel this can be avoided easily via stats and coverage options. Further, we can just avoid setup moves that make CAP harder to kill. By steering clear of Speed-boosting or defensive boosting, we can leave enough counterplay open in later stages so that CAP doesn't devolve into a late-game sweeper.
On Choice items, it would be a mistake to go out of our way to make CAP a poor user of them. The inability to switch moves does not imply an inability to support the rest of the team, as we see a lot of users of said items--particularly Scarf--including one or several utility options in their sets. These include fast pivots, emergency Defogs or speed-control (Paralysis-inducing moves, Tailwind), safer Healing Wish/Memento, and Trick from the likes of Kitsunoh, both Lati@s, every Rotom under the sun, Flygon and a big etc. For the other Choice items I focus mainly on Specs Whimsicott and Gardevoir, who again take advantage of massive support movepools on different sets, Choiced or not.
Further, having viable Choiced sets does not mean all the sets will be Choiced; most of the stuff I named had other viable sets last gen, so the possibility of having multiple viable sets that lean more towards support or towards offense is there. I think if we go out of our way to make CAP incapable of using these items we run a greater risk of just making a mon that's bad offensively
Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
Momentum is a powerful thing in Pokemon, and is something that support Pokemon frequently find themselves giving to the opposing team. I wonder what a support Pokemon with a way to toy with momentum, how much that would work? It's not typically considered "offensive" I suppose, but something like a Pokemon with a passive support (Grassy Terrain or Screen Cleaner or Red Card for example) and then Sub and/or Baton Pass to preserve momentum, or a Dragon Tail/Whirlwind/Roar support Pokemon that has the slot for it (Mandibuzz, looking at you).
You've got a supportive Pokemon that isn't going to bleed your momentum a ton. I think having a pocket Boomburst or Close Combat isn't a bad way to make a cleric more offensive, but I worry about 4MSS (Clefable, for example). I am curious what a "trickster" cleric that toys with momentum and messes with the opposing team while giving passive boosts to the team. Maybe by forcing switches (fear of Burn, immunities, Substitute) or by making the enemy switch themselves (Red card, phazing moves, etc) attached with some passive benefit for the team (terrain/weather clearing, hazards(?), something else?
There has been some great discussion so far and I wanted to try and summarise some of the points made as well as pose some new questions that I feel are important.
The general consensus is that a support Pokemon is one which has a primary function of providing its teammates with utility options, such as Knock Off, Hazard Removal, Status, Hazards, Recovery, Set-up opportunities, or momentum in the form of free switches (either by forcing them or with Volt-turn). This ties into the question on how to maintain offensive pressure with a support Pokemon, and to me that has been answered with the latter 2 examples - Set-up opportunities, and Momentum. This seems to be the same thought that a lot of people have had so far, referencing sets such as SM Tornadus, ORASNU Liepard, etc.
People in this thread, as well as in the discord conversations have also been referencing snake_rattler's concept of One-Hit Wonder here as well, with the notion that having one very strong attacking option and limited coverage will incentivise utility options in the other slots. I think this is an interesting idea, however, keeping 27 from utilising Choice Items and becoming an AoA will be an issue if we go down this path, as Pokemon such as Dracovish, Toxtricity, and past Generations Exploud have done this with essentially 1 or 2 strong attacks.
There is also the Hazards side of things, with a lot of people referring to Pokemon such as SM Garchomp, Excadrill, ORASNU Cryogonal, Roserade etc as offensive support Pokemon. Personally, I would not classify some of these Pokemon as Supportive Pokemon, just offensive Pokemon that happen to run hazard control options because they have a positive matchup into their respective tiers setters/removal. I think what sets apart Pokemon that run hazard control for this reason, and what I would classify as a supportive Pokemon with hazard control is defensive utility. Sets such as the defensive Tornadus-T, ORASNU Cryogonal, TankChomp, Heatran etc all provide support in the form of defensive utility via their typing and abilities, whilst also offering utility options such as Knock Off, Toxic, Hazards etc and have been generally considered as "Offensive Support Pokemon". I think this is the key takeaway from the hazard control based examples.
Questions
How important is defensive utility for a Pokemon whose primary function is to support its teammates?
Without Polljumping, how can we achieve defensive utility on a more offensive Pokemon?
And now that we have a grasp on what we define as a support Pokemon -
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualise our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cyrogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
Recovery, on the other hand, has had very little discussion as a form of Support an offensive Pokemon can provide and I feel this is because Wish is seen as a rather large momentum sink and can be difficult to pass off easily, which makes it hard to make such a Wish Passer effective offensively. Examples such as Jumbao and Sylveon have been cited but I am not sure the sets which used Wish for Jumbao would be classified as offensive Support, and have similar reservations about Sylveon. To me, these Pokemon are more defensive Pokemon with support options, I am interested to know how other people feel about these, which I guess ties into the 3rd question posed above.
I am also still super interested to read thoughts on some of the previous questions, so any more thoughts on those are extremely welcome!
I feel like a supportive pokémon should be able to tank at least one powerful neutral hit, and more of the weaker ones. Being able to tank one hit from a strong pokémon allows for easier pivoting (either by u-turn, teleport, healing wish etc) into your teammates to avoid a big blow on the switch in. Resisting several weaker hits gives the opportunity to set up hazards, screens, recover often or start damage chip, all which were explained why theyre great utility by other users.
Giving it options of utility that would be more beneficial for its playstyle + how it works with other pokémon than a full offense one. Full offense sets may happen at some point, as people will still try to see how the pokémon can be played, but synergizing utility will make it eaiser to work with.
This is pretty dry because I don't want to polljump on accident, sorry.
I do belive all the pokémon in the last question are very fine options to keep in mind when designing CAP27, so I don't have anything more to add. Hope this is good enough !
So it actually took me a solid second to figure what exactly meant by defensive utility in the context Jho gave, but I think I got a solid definition. Defensive utility, to me at least, is the utility provided by the defensive synergy the Pokemon offers to the overall team. Heatran from previous gens offers a bit of light into it, as its defensive utility would be its resistances of Psychic/Fairy and immunities of Poison and Fire, which help support the team as a whole. Also using Jho's tale of two Chomps, I think the true difference between them is that while both technically have similar defensive utility, one TankChomp actively uses it to offer support for the team. Z-Chomp never truly utilizes it to its full potential, and just has support moves because it can use them. An offensive mon with support moves has defensive utility, but a offensive support move actively uses it. With that in mind, it is very important to have that defensive utility on a mon that primarily supports its team, but also the fact that it also uses it as well.
I think the most proper way would be on bringing in resistances and immunities to the pokemon in the later stages to maximize the defensive synergy that it has with its possible teammates.
I believe defensive utility is crucial for support Pokemon to do their roles effectively. Going back to Cryogonal, I am certain it would not have been able to perform its role effectively had it not have its great Special Defense, or something like Heatran would not have been able to do what it does if it didn't have its Steel-type to give lots of easy switch-ins, most notably on Toxic. As I mentioned before, a support Pokemon needs to typically be able to play its role multiple times if it must, and if you are able to switch into practically nothing, you won't be doing the needed role much. The only clear exception I can see to this is a suicide lead, similar to DP Lead Azelf, but it isn't imo what we wanna do for this concept, because it really restricts our concept and is also something that I feel does not have anything to learn from.
There are several ways to go about this. I’m gonna split these by process stage to discuss what could be done in each to increase defensive utility. I will not discuss moves as those are much harder to establish defensive utility with without polljumping.
Typing
The obvious answer is to go for type combinations with lots of resistances and/or immunities. However, I would like to propose an alternative route where we pick a specific type that we want to beat (say Fairy, as a hypothetical). We then determine our type combo based on that. This method mainly popped into my head based off of how one of Cryogonal’s major niches was being one of the best Aurorus switches in ORAS NU. I specify a type as opposed to a specific Pokémon as I think tying to a specific Pokémon never works if Snael has shown anything. Of course, this alternate method of choosing a type is entirely optional if we want to go through with it, and the otherwise obvious logic of a type combination with lots of resistances is totally serviceable. I would like to briefly mention however that when we do choose type, we should also try to keep offensive pressure in mind, so type combos without a strong STAB move probably are not as good of an idea compared to those who have one or even two good STABs.
Ability
There are two real types we could go for in terms of using abilities to boost defensive utility. We could go for an immunity ability, or we could go for an ability that reduces damage in some fashion, be it of different types or of specific kinds of moves. Abilities are a bit restrictive in terms of bringing defensive utility, but we’ll see how the chips fall.
Stats
Obviously, having good bulk would increase defensive utility. If we do decide to go for a pivot or something similar, speed could either be really high or low, depending on what type of pivot we decide to make in that scenario.
I'm not sure if I got your point with the defensive utility thing, so I'll elaborate this post based on my understanding of it. Anyway, let me know if I make any mistake.
Well, first, I'll start with something established in that thread that I believe to be indispensable: the concept of repeatable utility brought by Reviloja.
In order for a Pokémon to be considered worthy of occupying a teamslot by a player, it needs to play its role very well unless you are an idiot who likes to use gimmicky things like me. As a support Pokémon, it needs, well, to support its teammates properly during the game. For this, it is necessary that the Pokémon can fulfill its role (hazard setter/cleaner, screens/weather/terrain setter, wish passer, pivot etc.) as many times as your team needs, switching in and switching out as many times as needed, so I believe that the key word here is longevity.
CAP27 will need to stay healthy as long as its team needs its support, whether through defensive stats, resistances or immunities, it has to be able to deal with the offensive power that the opponent may offer against the team. Another important element so that CAP27 can remain healthy is, without a doubt, recovery. Without a reliable form of recovery, no matter how defensive it is, it will be easily worn down by the opponent throughout the match, demanding greater healing support so that it can play its role fully. Look at Seismitoad, the most beloved frog in OU, although it has a considerable defensive side, it has no form of recovery besides leftovers (which is not exactly reliable as it heals very little per turn) and Water Absorb (which is extremely situational, since you depend on whether your opponent uses a water move in front of the frog), leading you to take a dedicated support to keep it healthy (that personally I think it hurts our concept of support, because to support the team the Pokémon should be self-sustaining on its own) or playing extremely cautiously so that it is not weakened too early in the game (which can sometimes break the your momentum in the match and thus hurting our concept offensive) and so it can fulfill your role.
I would also like to state here the example of one of the Pokémon mentioned in the original concept: Clefable. While having a decent bulk, Clefable has a good defensive type, ensuring some interesting resistances and useful immunity to dragons. In addition, we have Clef's greatest triumph, Magic Guard, which encourages the player to bring it to the field, thanks to its immunity to hazards damage, also allowing it to function as a sponge for status conditions. In addition, Clef also has access to a very reliable form of recovery in Soft Boiled, Moonlight (in lesser extent) and even Wish (although the latter is more of a momentum killer), which allows it to stay healthy throughout the match while it denies minor damage to secondary elements and supports his team by spreading Thunder Waves, Stealth Rocks and Wishes.
I can't develop much on this topic without polljumping, so it will be relatively simple and superficial. As I showed above, I think we have three main points:
Balanced defensive stats, so that he can take one or two hits even uninvested, but also in order to prevent him from becoming a wall.
Key resistances and/or immunities, either through types or abilities, giving possibilities for free switchins.
Reliable recovery, a good part of my post was about this and I hope I have clearly demonstrated my point here. As I've said a lot, I believe this is a crucial point for a Pokémon's defensive utility and the way it takes advantage of it to help its team.
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualise our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cyrogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
Not sure if it's too late, but there is one Pokemon that very much meets the criteria of "Offensive Support " that I'm surprised has gone unmentioned.
Landorus-Therian @ Flyinium Z
Jolly Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Fly
Lando-T's offensive Stealth Rock/Z move set is an example of compressing team support in with the ability to sweep. It was most useful when used as a surprise sweeper late-game, but could also punch holes for its team midgame. The ability to set Rocks for its own sweep later, much like the example of Ash-Gren setting Spikes, also allowed it to support its team.
Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Jolly Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 232 Atk / 68 Def / 208 Spe
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Defog
And yes, you can have support moves on a Choiced mon. On one hand, this set is more of a pivot than a dedicated support pokemon. Last gen however in Ubers, Xerneas was able to pull off a Choiced set with Defog (and Aromatherapy) that clearly was not a pivot. In general, I think that for this to succeed, the Choiced Defogger needs to be able to force a switch by carrying a large offensive threat. This gives them the turn they need.
Xerneas @ Choice Scarf
Modest Nature
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Spe / 252 SpA
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Aromatherapy
- Defog
Landorus-Therian @ Focus Sash
Jolly Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 SpD
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Rock Tomb
I think we concluded a suicide lead was not what the concept called for. So this should be avoided, but sac-for-momentum moves are a great example of offensive team support (see:Choice Scarf Jirachi, Trick Room Cresselia, and many more). So this is a fine line to draw.
I think these examples show that in general, an offensive support should be able to "cash in" on momentum by providing team support. Having a moveslot or two dedicated to turning momentum into something concrete like hazards, healing, or even crippling opposing mons. The last idea intrigues me the most. The idea of a mon being able to cripple its checks with status (or Trick) for team support and facilitating its own damage later seems to fit the idea the concept and its inspiration closely. However, there has been several cases (Aegi and Zygarde spring to mind) where a mon being able to cripple a small pool of checks with status made it broken. So with all this in mind:
Suprisingly, not that much. All it needs to do is to be able to switch into an attack, force the attacker out, and use the free turn that results. Actual defensive utility just allows it to switch into a wider range of attacks. And if it is given free switch-ins, even that is unneeded. If its primary task is supporting its teammates, it needs to be switching in and out more often to achieve this, so recovery is good, but as Lando-T shows, not essential. Where you draw the line between pivot and support is a tricky question, but I think the example of Xerneas shows that a Choiced support without the capability to regain momentum is viable. However, because we want a primarily supportive mon, defensive utility matters more there.
Assuming we do want our mon to be able to switch into attacks, it might well be possible to favour one defensive side over another. Having a mon that can abuse special or physical attackers but not both would clearly define what we want to switch in on and force out. And yes, having a strong defensive typing works, but is not essential. Indeed, a more offensively inclined typing would allow us to force more Pokemon out.
And now that we have a grasp on what we define as a support Pokemon -
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualise our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cyrogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
Now, this entire post has been showing that taking a more offensive approach to support can help by generating many free turns on forced switches. But I'm going to play devil's advocate here.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Relaxed Nature
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 104 Atk / 8 Def / 144 SpD
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip
- Leech Seed
- Protect
Ferrothorn is mostly known for being annoying to kill. But it also boasts two of the hardest-hitting STABs known to man:Gyro Ball and Power Whip. This is a doubles set without much team support, but mentally switch Protect for Stealth Rock or Knock Off or Thunder Wave (and possibly Leech Seed for Curse) and you'll see what I'm getting at here. Ferrothorn's incredible bulk allows it to switch into many attacks, its bulk forces many switches, and it can do some serious damage:
104 Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon: 186-220 (57.2 - 67.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (vs Choice Scarf)
104 Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clefable: 177-208 (44.9 - 52.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery (more damage than Gyro Ball btw)
104 Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Excadrill: 205-243 (56.7 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
So does Ferrothorn fit our concept? The thing I will say is that Ferro's 4MSS often makes it hard for it to fit the utility and offensive presence it wants into one set, and it often finds itself dumping Attack and offensive presence in favour of more bulk and PP. Would we regard this as a failure if CAP27 does this?
From a CAP perspective:
Equilibra @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 68 SpA / 84 SpD / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
- Doom Desire
- Earth Power
- Rapid Spin
- Pain Split
Equilibra can provide team support via Rapid Spin and Doom Desire. It finds many switch-in opportunities with its excellent bulk and typing, together with its ability of choice. Does Equilibra meet our concept? If not, why not? Obviously Doom Desire is probably off the table for this concept, but that aside, I think Equilibra fulfils the concept of Offensive Team Support quite well.
I'm very interested in what everyone thinks of this. Sorry if I did anything wrong with this.
Not sure if it's too late, but there is one Pokemon that very much meets the criteria of "Offensive Support " that I'm surprised has gone unmentioned.
Landorus-Therian @ Flyinium Z
Jolly Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Fly
Lando-T's offensive Stealth Rock/Z move set is an example of compressing team support in with the ability to sweep. It was most useful when used as a surprise sweeper late-game, but could also punch holes for its team midgame. The ability to set Rocks for its own sweep later, much like the example of Ash-Gren setting Spikes, also allowed it to support its team.
Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Jolly Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 232 Atk / 68 Def / 208 Spe
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Defog
And yes, you can have support moves on a Choiced mon. On one hand, this set is more of a pivot than a dedicated support pokemon. Last gen however in Ubers, Xerneas was able to pull off a Choiced set with Defog (and Aromatherapy) that clearly was not a pivot. In general, I think that for this to succeed, the Choiced Defogger needs to be able to force a switch by carrying a large offensive threat. This gives them the turn they need.
Xerneas @ Choice Scarf
Modest Nature
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Spe / 252 SpA
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Aromatherapy
- Defog
Landorus-Therian @ Focus Sash
Jolly Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 SpD
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Rock Tomb
I think we concluded a suicide lead was not what the concept called for. So this should be avoided, but sac-for-momentum moves are a great example of offensive team support (see:Choice Scarf Jirachi, Trick Room Cresselia, and many more). So this is a fine line to draw.
I think these examples show that in general, an offensive support should be able to "cash in" on momentum by providing team support. Having a moveslot or two dedicated to turning momentum into something concrete like hazards, healing, or even crippling opposing mons. The last idea intrigues me the most. The idea of a mon being able to cripple its checks with status (or Trick) for team support and facilitating its own damage later seems to fit the idea the concept and its inspiration closely. However, there has been several cases (Aegi and Zygarde spring to mind) where a mon being able to cripple a small pool of checks with status made it broken. So with all this in mind:
Suprisingly, not that much. All it needs to do is to be able to switch into an attack, force the attacker out, and use the free turn that results. Actual defensive utility just allows it to switch into a wider range of attacks. And if it is given free switch-ins, even that is unneeded. If its primary task is supporting its teammates, it needs to be switching in and out more often to achieve this, so recovery is good, but as Lando-T shows, not essential. Where you draw the line between pivot and support is a tricky question, but I think the example of Xerneas shows that a Choiced support without the capability to regain momentum is viable. However, because we want a primarily supportive mon, defensive utility matters more there.
Assuming we do want our mon to be able to switch into attacks, it might well be possible to favour one defensive side over another. Having a mon that can abuse special or physical attackers but not both would clearly define what we want to switch in on and force out. And yes, having a strong defensive typing works, but is not essential. Indeed, a more offensively inclined typing would allow us to force more Pokemon out.
Now, this entire post has been showing that taking a more offensive approach to support can help by generating many free turns on forced switches. But I'm going to play devil's advocate here.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Relaxed Nature
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 104 Atk / 8 Def / 144 SpD
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip
- Leech Seed
- Protect
Ferrothorn is mostly known for being annoying to kill. But it also boasts two of the hardest-hitting STABs known to man:Gyro Ball and Power Whip. This is a doubles set without much team support, but mentally switch Protect for Stealth Rock or Knock Off or Thunder Wave (and possibly Leech Seed for Curse) and you'll see what I'm getting at here. Ferrothorn's incredible bulk allows it to switch into many attacks, its bulk forces many switches, and it can do some serious damage:
104 Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon: 186-220 (57.2 - 67.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (vs Choice Scarf)
104 Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clefable: 177-208 (44.9 - 52.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery (more damage than Gyro Ball btw)
104 Atk Ferrothorn Power Whip vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Excadrill: 205-243 (56.7 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
So does Ferrothorn fit our concept? The thing I will say is that Ferro's 4MSS often makes it hard for it to fit the utility and offensive presence it wants into one set, and it often finds itself dumping Attack and offensive presence in favour of more bulk and PP. Would we regard this as a failure if CAP27 does this?
From a CAP perspective:
Equilibra @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 68 SpA / 84 SpD / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
- Doom Desire
- Earth Power
- Rapid Spin
- Pain Split
Equilibra can provide team support via Rapid Spin and Doom Desire. It finds many switch-in opportunities with its excellent bulk and typing, together with its ability of choice. Does Equilibra meet our concept? If not, why not? Obviously Doom Desire is probably off the table for this concept, but that aside, I think Equilibra fulfils the concept of Offensive Team Support quite well.
I'm very interested in what everyone thinks of this. Sorry if I did anything wrong with this.
I was a little lost with the concept of utility throughout this thread, but I believe that the first two examples you gave fit more in the point of offensive Pokémon with hazards control (the first more than the second) that Jho talked about. The third set, while very close to the established support idea, makes me a little scared. I would hate to see this process move towards a "supreme suicide lead", it is just too shallow and I don't see many nuances that we could explore from that point on. Additionally, the Xerneas set looks much more interesting to the point where the process seems to be going, giving us an idea of how a predominantly offensive Pokémon can walk on more supportive sides, even though it still plays its role as an offensive threat.
By the way, now that you mention it, I don't believe anyone has quoted Equilibra here yet. While his really supportive sets have kind of fallen off the board and this set doesn't have such a significant support position, it gives us a good point on how a Pokémon with defensive utility can play a threatening role in battle and still deal with the responsibility of supporting your teammates. Ferrothorn is the opposite. Even though it is a Pokémon with a lot of defensive utility, it struggles to balance the supporting elements and the offensive elements within its set, often giving up one so that it can explore the other. In this way Libra and Thorn open another point for us: balancing supportive and offensive capacities so that the Pokémon can make effective use of its defensive utility and thus exercise its role in an appropriate manner, without having to dedicate itself specifically to one or the other.
How important is defensive utility for a Pokemon whose primary function is to support its teammates?
Without Polljumping, how can we achieve defensive utility on a more offensive Pokemon?
And now that we have a grasp on what we define as a support Pokemon -
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualise our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cyrogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
"How important is defensive utility for a Pokemon whose primary function is to support its teammates?"
This is a very lazy answer, but sufficient defensive utility to give it enough chances to provide support for a teammate. Compare SMOU Tornadus-Therian, ORASNU Liepard, ORASOU Thundurus-I, and SwShOU Dugtrio, all are definitely offensive support Pokemon, but all have wildly varying bulk, typing, and abilities. (Note, I do not think Dugtrio is a mon we should try to emulate at all, but it is one more datapoint) I think we should aim to ensure that we have a select set of matchups we can easily pivot into due to our typing and bulk, and ideally, we should have a fairly linear set of expected switchins to help support teammates.
"Without Polljumping, how can we achieve defensive utility on a more offensive Pokemon?"
There are three basic answers here, Typing, Stats, and Ability (aka three future stages). Tornadus-Therian, one of the premiere SMOU examples of this concept achieves significant defensive utility, even on offensive sets, thanks to the combination of its typing, which gives key resistances and immunities to key threats (Kartana, Lando-T), and its ability Regenerator, which means that it can use these defensive aspects throughout an entire game. SMCAP Jumbao is an example of a mon that has all three, great typing, great bulk, and a useful ability that situationally gives it the ability to beat archetypes that offensive teams struggle with (eg rain). Again, this bulk, typing, and ability give it the ability to come in many times a match, and the Fairium-Z Wish set used these in abundance to have a presence all game long, and to buy chances to heal up its teammates. Finally, this can be contrasted to a mon such as ORASNU Liepard, which does not have a defensive ability, nor much bulk to speak of, however it still has a useful dark typing which, if played right, gives it a number of free switchins to Ghost and Psychic Types. It can then use Prankster Encore to ensure that these free switchins are kept free; a Mesprit encored into Psychic can never stay in. This interaction between ability and typing is probably unique to it, but shows a way to work around horrible bulk by forcing the opponent to lock into an unfavorable move.
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualise our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cyrogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
Again, this is a very lazy answer, but offensive enough to buy time to use its supporting moves. Tornadus would be a horrible defogger if it couldn't threaten out Rockers, Heatran would be unable to really work its magic if it wasn't backed up by the threat of a ~130 SpA fire STAB. Jumbao again is a great example here, as the sheer threat posed by a Fairium-Z boosted Moonblast is key to forcing switches, and allowing Jumbao to set up a Wish Pass. All of the examples given above are hazard focused, and while that is a direction we could take the cap, I do believe its a bit limiting, and examples such as SMCAP Fairium-Z Wish Jumbao, ORASNU Offensive Pivot Liepard, and ORAS T-Wave Thundurus-I are all examples I'd rather take after.
I guess in summary my point is: We need to be defensive enough to allow the CAP to be brought in enough times per match to support its teammates, and offensive enough to force switches, and thus buy time to use its supporting moves. I think the main contrast we should have with a traditional support mon such as Sylveon is that we should use our offensive presence as a key element to buy time to support our teammates, rather than relying on sheer bulk or the ability to force out an enemy because we wall it.
Jumbao @ Fairium Z
Ability: Trace
EVs: 240 HP / 44 SpA / 224 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Shore Up
- Wish
I think these examples show that in general, an offensive support should be able to "cash in" on momentum by providing team support. Having a moveslot or two dedicated to turning momentum into something concrete like hazards, healing, or even crippling opposing mons. The last idea intrigues me the most. The idea of a mon being able to cripple its checks with status (or Trick) for team support and facilitating its own damage later seems to fit the idea the concept and its inspiration closely.
I guess in summary my point is: We need to be defensive enough to allow the CAP to be brought in enough times per match to support its teammates, and offensive enough to force switches, and thus buy time to use its supporting moves. I think the main contrast we should have with a traditional support mon such as Sylveon is that we should use our offensive presence as a key element to buy time to support our teammates, rather than relying on sheer bulk or the ability to force out an enemy because we wall it.
My first entry into the thread is basically reinforcing what quziel and theotherguytm have to say for these sets of questions. I think they absolutely hit the nail on the head when it comes to these sets of questions, and ultimately what I think we should aim to achieve with CAP 27. I want to expand slightly when it comes to the question of defensive utility, and basically state that first and foremost this should be achieved through typing. As we have seen with examples throughout the thread, there are a range of different levels of stat spreads that can fill this concept, where commonality is found however, is in the ability to use key resistances and immunities to provide switch in opportunities. As such, I think the most crucial stage for CAP 27 will be the typing stage, and working out what moves CAP 27 should be trying to switch in to.
On somewhat of a tangent, I've seen some interesting discussion about momentum and what support moves can be used to preserve it, and wanted to address this. Personally I believe that focusing too much on how to preserve momentum is somewhat sidestepping the actual concept, which is using an offensive presence to support its team. Rather than needing to exclusively preserve momentum, I believe what this CAP should aim to achieve, is using the momentum it generates to be able to do something that is normally considered a momentum sink.
One example that springs to mind that I haven't seen mentioned yet is SM Greninja. While I don't think by any stretch of the imagination it fits this concept perfectly, the fact that it carried Spikes because of all the switches it caused, shows how what would normally not be considered a high momentum move, can in fact be utilised when switches are forced by offensive presence. I don't want to poll jump at all, but just wanted to highlight that support moves that are mentioned later on shouldn't be eliminated purely because they are low momentum.
How important is defensive utility for a Pokemon whose primary function is to support its teammates?
As it has already been said, this can vary a lot depending on the route we want to take, as even frail Pokemon like Thundurus-I and Dugtrio can provide valuable support even if they struggle to switch in. However, I think that we should always aim to have at least some level of defensive utility. A frail Pokemon will always have a harder time supporting its team and making CAP 27 with little to no defensive utility would make the whole process much more difficult.
Without Polljumping, how can we achieve defensive utility on a more offensive Pokemon?
I think the amount of relevant threats a Pokemon can check is the main factor to determine the defensive utility it can provide. SM Tornadus-T is a great example of this, as its more defensive sets get away with having mediocre bulk and a suboptimal typing because it still has a good matchup against key threats like Kartana and Landorus-T, specially with Regenerator keeping it healthy without ever losing momentum. Of course this can also be achieved through more traditionally defensive typing and stats like Heatran, but Tornadus-T proves that approach is not required as long as CAP 27 offers at least a few key resistances.
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualize our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cryogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
A higher offensive prowess is a double-edged sword, on one hand it improves the amount of switches we can force, but it might end up restricting our support options if we take it too far, and coverage moves could eat up valuable moveslots we could be using on support moves. On the other hand, a lower power ceiling risk making us too passive, but allows for a greater variety of support options. It could also work well in conjunction with moves that cripple our switch-ins, like Knock Off or Toxic, as we can focus on crippling most of our checks despite not having the ability threaten them offensively while still scaring off the things we are supposed to. I'd say the all examples given show well how to balance the offensive presence of a support Pokemon, although I don't think basing our offensive presence on previous Pokemon is important as long as we can at least immediately force out Pokemon we are supposed to check.
In general I think that regarding the exact power level of CAP 27, it'd be better if we keep our options as open as possible for now. It's likely we'll have to make a final call later on, probably around Threats discussion but right now there are many ways to accomplish our goal and we don't need to restrict them so soon, as this concept is very flexible.
So my last posted got taken down by mods because it didn't contribute anything to the discussion.
All it was is that I wanted to give a huge thanks to Atha for his summary post of whats been said so far.
But now that Jho posted some new questions, and I've read some new posts, time to try and answer these the best that I can.
How important is defensive utility for a Pokemon whose primary function is to support its teammates?
Without Polljumping, how can we achieve defensive utility on a more offensive Pokemon?
And now that we have a grasp on what we define as a support Pokemon -
How offensive does CAP27 need to be in order to actualise our concept? Do we consider the above examples of Tornadus-T, Heatran, TankChomp, Cyrogonal etc as good examples of the balance between offense and support that we should aim for?
Recovery, on the other hand, has had very little discussion as a form of Support an offensive Pokemon can provide and I feel this is because Wish is seen as a rather large momentum sink and can be difficult to pass off easily, which makes it hard to make such a Wish Passer effective offensively.
1) As others have said, it really varies. A lot of examples given quite a bit of variance in terms of bulk and defensive typing. So my general response for now is that defensive utility is important because it allows the pokemon opportunities to safely switch in and begin supporting its teammates. For example, I know we shouldn't try to emulate but its Ground typing does give it opportunities to switch in on electric types for free and then trap them. Tornadus-Therian is immune to ground and resistant to U-Turn, etc. Defensive utility is very important to a support Pokemon, just the degree of said utility can vary.
2) As Ive said in my first post, one of the ideal waves is to give said Pokemon offensive moves with either high chance of secondary effects that can support its teammates. For example, rapid spin removes hazards, knock off for item control, stat control with Mystical Fire, volt turn for pivot, etc. Instead of the Pokemon having a hard time deciding between offensive moves and support moves, blend them together. Or you can give it Lets Go Moves (which solves the problem but I wouldn't support them on account of them being broke af). Also, as Quizel said, defensive utility can be achieved with stats, typing and ability. Which Im not going to discuss right now because I don't want to poll jump.
3) Hmm, we want our offense to be strong enough to maintain momentum and force switches. If offensive pressure is to low, then the Pokemon is to passive which defeats the purpose of the concept. But we don't want it to be strong enough that it would be much better to just run a choice set or become a sweeper. So set up moves are a no go (except Rapid Spin), and we don't want the coverage to be amazing.
Finally, I want to discuss about Jho's point concerning recovery. Yeah, wish is really hard because you really want to run Protect which means you have to give up 2 slots just for healing utility. But, there is always Healing Wish which Pokemon like Jirachi and Jumbao have fit in. But this also wants me to go into a side topic about CAP 27's ability to heal itself. Std Healing moves can take momentum away from the Pokemon but I think recovery is something that CAP 27 should have because increasing it longevity gives it more chances to switch in and supports its team throughout a game. For example Regenerator keeps therian healthy throughout the game while not costing its team momentum. There are other options I can think of. But again, I really don't want to poll jump.
Also, totally forgot about an example for an Offensive Support Mon. I know its from VGC, but Incineroar come to my mind.
It has a solid Attack stat backed by a high power STAB move (flare blitz), but supports it allies with its ability Intimidate and moves such as Fake Out, Snarl, U-Turn, and Knock Off.
Some Pokémon achieve roughly what we are going for with lower defenses through offensive presence.
However, I think it is much easier and safer to have this defensive utility. As an offensive support Pokémon, CAP27 will need to come in fairly easily and stay in long enough to perform the support it needs to provide for its teammates. This indicates a need for longevity.
As for how this is done, some combination of a good defensive typing, bulky stats, an ability that provides some form of protection and some form of recovery is all helpful and the more of that we provide, the more longevity our Pokémon will have, and therefore, the more opportunities it will have to provide the support we want it to.
I have been really loving the discussion so far and I think we’re at the point where we have an understanding of our concept enough to move on from concept assessment. I will be leaving this thread open for 48 hours for anyone who wishes to get final thoughts in, and I do encourage anyone to post with their thoughts if they have not done so already!
but its Ground typing does give it opportunities to switch in on electric types for free and then trap them. Tornadus-Therian is immune to ground and resistant to U-Turn, etc. Defensive utility is very important to a support Pokemon, just the degree of said utility can vary.