1) Given CAP 27's typing and the first look we got at its future place in the metagame through threats discussion, should the primary ability focus on shoring up defensive utility or enhancing offensive presence?
At this point, I think we could definitely go either way; improving defensive utility and giving us even more, or even more varied switchins is imo just as valid as an ability such as Serene Grace / Poison Touch that adds offensive presence (sorta) to our moves.
2) What abilities would be the most useful for improving CAP 27's utility?
So, improving our utility sorta goes back to question 1; We can either give the pokemon more chances to come in, and use the utility moves it has already, or we can use an ability that either increases, or wholly adds utility onto our moves.
More Chances to come in:
Regenerator: I think this is probably the golden standard of just giving us a metric ton of chances to come in, meaning that with HDB we can basically switch into any attack that does less than 33% for absolute free, but like, it does fit, and it would absolutely keep us healthy
without us needing to spend any turns on healing up, or even enable the known goodstuff strat of Wish + Regen. Wish + Regen is basically a way to heal up a teammate with very minimal momentum loss, so this ability is notably pretty pro-concept. I think its a bit boring, but it def fits, which is why I'm mentioning it first.
Edit: I want to note that I think this ability is potentially a very bad idea, and could easily create a mon that can just choke the meta. Regenerator is an incredibly strong ability, and would require severe sacrifices in either stats or movepool to really end up as something I am ok with, especially with HDB around.
Immunity Abilities: As we saw pretty recently with Equilibra, an immunity ability gives you a drastically larger number of mons you can come in for free on. There's a ton of them, and imo the most interesting are ones such as Bulletproof (immunity to sludge bomb is funny vs mollux), Lightning Rod/Volt Absorb (turns electric stuff into a legit won matchup). Overall a category worth mentioning, but not one I think is that worth doing because well it does legit expand our switchin opportunities quite substantially, however, as libra showed, these abilities are very polarizing. (Levitate also exists, but sorta contradicts our desire to be checked by Grounds). A final one is Immunity, which notably lets us lean super hard into a pseudo-stallbreaker role, giving us immunity to Mollux's Sludge Bomb Poison, as well as Toxic from stuff like Pex.
More Utility on Attacks:
Poison Touch: So, this ability is one I love a ton, because it takes Fire / Dragon stab combo, where Fire admittedly has a lot of cool secondary effect moves, and where Dragon has very few, and adds a 30% Poison chance to any contact move we use. This is legit super cool, and super pro-concept because it means that our damaging moves are effectively letting us cripple or wear down our checks using
support options, that is, a Poisoned Hippowdon is suddenly easier to put into range for our teammate Excadrill, a Poisoned Gastrodon is gonna match up way worse vs Krillowatt. Because its adding a support secondary to all of our damaging moves, I view this ability as an excellent way to actualize Offensive Support.
Serene Grace: Fire/Dragon is actually in possession of a few secondary effect moves that would become amazing with their chances doubled. And, luckily, no STAB flinch moves, which means that we can basically allow ourselves to spread supporting conditions such as Burn (Lava Plume, literally every fire move) and Paralysis (Dragon Breath) while also getting damage, again, something I view as fairly pro-concept. For similar reasons the ability to stack extra supporting power onto our main offensive STABs is very relevant here.
Don't hit me:
This is a pretty broad category of abilities, but stuff like
Flame Body and
Rough Skin both broadly fall into the "if you make contact with this mon you are punished" kinda category, and well, something where we can make it so the opponent really doesn't wanna click U-turn is super good for any offensive team, and like, as Garchomp and Moltres showed us last Gen, this kinda ability really does fit well on an Offensive Support, as well, its free supporting powers that only require you to be bulky enough to take a hit or two.
Revenge Killing:
This again is a pretty broad category, but abilities such as
Prankster,
Sturdy, and
Multiscale mean that no matter what you can sorta work as a Revenge Killer, an Offensive role, and as long as you maintain the ability to function as a pseudo-revenge killer, you're sorta safe. This is seen in past gens with Prankwave Thundy-I and certain BW era Dragonite sets. The ability to just use your ability to protect your team from sweepers means that you can spend a lot of your set on support options and still contribute as an offensive support.
Edit:
Unaware also fits into the category of revenge killer, and, if put onto an
offensive mon would give us a very unique position as a sorta revenge killer hybrid offensive hybrid support mon, which absolutely is pro-concept. This would also tilt the CM Clef matchup potentially into our favor. I think a lot of work would have to be done with this ability to deny the ability to just lean purely into a supporting role, but its a very interesting potential direction for us to go.
3) Are there abilities that can give or enable CAP 27 to use the type of utility options discussed in Concept Assessment?
This is discussed a bit above, but Regenerator is a pretty solid way to enable wish, shoving utility into the ability thanks to SG or PT can also enable moveslot inefficient stuff, eg Wish, Heal Bell, and again, the Revenge Killing options would definitely allow you to viably run support options such as Thunder Wave on your main set.