CAP 37 - Part 5 - Primary Ability Discussion

[Da Pizza Man]

CAP 37 So Far

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Please pay very close attention to viol and bass's posts during this thread and remain on topic. DO NOT begin by posting massive lists of abilities!

Some general rules for this discussion:

• Custom abilities are banned. No exceptions. Posts suggesting custom abilities will be deleted.
• There are ability banlists for the different stages of ability discussion. Posts suggesting banned abilities will be deleted.
• Flavor abilities do not have any place in this thread. Do not bring up flavor reasoning. Posts that rely on flavor reasoning will be deleted.

The following abilities are banned from this discussion:

Fully Banned Abilities group

Arena Trap
As One
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beads Of Ruin
Beast Boost *
Chilling Neigh
Commander
Dark Aura
Dauntless Shield
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise
Dragon's Maw
Fairy Aura
Flower Gift
Forecast
Full Metal Body
Grim Neigh
Gulp Missile
Hadron Engine
Hunger Switch
Ice Face
Illusion
Imposter
Intrepid Sword
Moody
Multitype
Neuroforce
Orichalcum Pulse
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor
Protosynthesis *
Quark Drive *
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield
Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Sword Of Ruin
Tablets Of Ruin
Teravolt
Transistor
Turboblaze
Unseen Fist
Vessel Of Ruin
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode
Zero To Hero

* These abilities will only be unbanned on a concept which is based around this ability - Such as an Ultra Beast or Paradox Pokemon

Soft Banned Abilities group

These abilities are banned by default and should not be discussed barring exceptional cases. If you believe one of these abilities should be considered, you can make a post trying to explain why an exception is warranted in this specific case and if both the TL and Ability Leader agree, it will be allowed. If the TLT disagrees with the unbanning proposal, they should be considered fully banned and should not be further discussed.

Bulletproof
Color Change*
Defeatist
Dry Skin
Earth Eater
Flash Fire
Fur Coat
Good As Gold
Gorilla Tactics
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Libero*
Levitate
Lightning Rod
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Magnet Pull
Mimicry*
Motor Drive
Parental Bond
Protean*
Pure Power
Purifying Salt
Regenerator
Sap Sipper
Slow Start
Stall
Storm Drain
Truant
Volt Absorb
Water Absorb
Water Bubble
Well Baked Body
Wind Rider

*These abilities can only be considered for an unban if the Ability stage is done before typing.

Secondary Ability ban group

Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Steam Engine
Supreme Overlord
Toxic Debris
Triage

Flavor ability only ban group

Ball Fetch
Battery
Costar
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power Spot
Power of Alchemy
Propeller Tail
Receiver
Run Away
Stalwart
Symbiosis
Telepathy

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Primary Ability banlist

Fully Banned Abilities group + Soft Banned Abilities group + flavor ability-only group

Secondary Ability banlist

Fully Banned Abilities group + Soft Banned Abilities group + secondary ability group + flavor ability-only group

Flavor Ability banlist

Primary ability group + secondary ability group

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I'll now hand this over to viol and bass to make the first post in the thread. Please have a good discussion.

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Ability banlist PRC threads:

• US/UM: http://www.smogon.com/forums/posts/7391668
• SW/SH: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3659245/
• S/V: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3715273/

 

[viol and bass]

Hey everybody! I'm very excited to open up ability discussion on our floaty friend. We'll start with a round of questions, mostly centered around our area of focus: where we stand currently, what's important to address in this stage, and what can be left until later. You can name abilities as examples when answering these questions, but keep in mind ability submissions are not open yet. Let's get our beaks warm.

• Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

By the time we got to the ability stage in Ramnarok’s process, we already knew that we faced issues with limited moveslots and with real defensive utility, both of which were addressed to different degrees by the addition of No Guard. This question is trying to identify our weak points / foremost areas of concern for this stage. Examples might be issues with Beak Blast itself, our threat level, our defensive coherency and ability to switch in, competition from similar pokemon for a teamslot, etc. The second part of the question is important here. If we face a problem, but that problem can easily be solved in the normal course of a future stage without making any grand assumptions, maybe it's best to save our ability slot for something else.

• Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

Many have mentioned the fact that switching out is currently really good Beak Blast counterplay. If we can make switching out difficult, we may be able to activate Beak Blast's conditional effect more often. The thrust of this question is "is it enough to just hit pretty hard?"

• Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

We have a very good typing with some nice defensive boons, but it's not necessarily a perfect typing for switching into real mons in the metagame. As we established in our Role Discussion stage, we will be tanking hits regularly with this CAP, and we're quite vulnerable to status from pokemon we'd otherwise like to switch into. The defensive end is an area of concern for me currently, since defensive issues are not always easily solved post-ability stage.

Planning to leave about 48 hours for this.

 

[Robraf]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

We are SR weak and therefore Knock Off Weak. We can give 37 an ability that punishes contact and therefore punishes Knocking Off but we have to question if further disincentivizing contact moves is fulfilling our concept. Such an ability would definitely help out our typing but it would practically go against our concept which is an unfortunate dilemma.

Damage output could be criticized tho this is technically always something you could make up with stats but given our great offensive typing we want to significantly chip away.

Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

Personally I 100% agree with this. BBs concept is not just fulfilled when we effectively threaten burns but it also needs to actually be able to deal damage. Does that need to be our ability? Idk about that but either that or our Attack Base needs to make up for it. We have mentioned Stakeout and Analytic before but especially Stakeout does phenomenal in combination with Beak Blast in the concept of pinnning our opponent. It‘s such a potent strategy that should definitely be considered. But I‘ll go deeper into that when we actually get to Ability Submission.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

I already talked about the contact punishing abilities but I do wanna emphasize that there are some that I 100% do not personally wanna see on 37 that being Static, Flamebody, Effect Spore and Poison Point. All of these abilities heavily go against our concept cause they discourage us in playing BB at all.

Coming to the more defensive leaning abilities. Some very good ones that could even excuse the lack of 50% recovery with Regenerator and Magic Guard quickly come into mind, considering that our worst trait is the fact that we are Rocks weak and function well into a lot of mons that run Knock Off. Tho we have to also consider that both Magic Guard and Regenerator are soft banned abilities, so you‘d have to make a really good argument to get them slatted.

Other abilities that I‘ve seen being valuable would be Shield Dust or Natural Cure which both primarily wanna help us into status. I do see quite some value in these abilities as Burn is quite an annoying status for 37.

 

[Jomakl]

• Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

One problem with 37 is that status can play into with some freedom, unless 37 switches out every time a status spreader comes in its going to be status-ed. Most teams run at least one mon with wisp, twave, glare or toxic. All of these hurt 37 in particular, poison dropping survivability, burn reducing threat of beak blast and para being annoying as always. I think this could be covered here in ability, whether directly or indirectly; abilities that benefit switching out or matchup well into status spreaders would be just as beneficial as abilities that reduce the risk of status altogether.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i've already mentioned a couple, but here's some extras i was thinking about:

one minor issue i've noticed about 37 is that fire-types can just come in and use contact attacks on it with impunity, since they can't be burned. i think a good way to address this would be to give it either heatproof or thermal exchange to discourage fire-types from hanging around it too often. thermal exchange gives a burn immunity and +1 attack when hit by fire moves, both of which help 37 offensively against fire-types as well as discouraging will-o-wisps from non-fire guys and protecting against other forms of burn, which 37 would likely be vulnerable to otherwise. heatproof is the more defensive option, effectively giving the mon a fire resistance to complement the quite good defensive profile granted by the ground immunity and ghost and dark resistances we have already, but does nothing about burn aside from halving the already minuscule damage it does. thick fat would also be a decent idea for this, both providing a fire resistance and eliminating an ice weakness. ice being a type that's used with non-contact moves a lot more than contact ones, it's probably a good idea to make 37 a little less vulnerable to it

it was also mentioned that status conditions are generally a problem for 37, so other abilities that mitigate the effects of various statuses (in a similar vein to thermal exchange's burn immunity) would also be good. as mentioned already, shield dust protects from quite a lot of status conditions and is a great risk-reduction tool in general. shed skin or natural cure would allow for self-healing of status conditions; shed skin's probably preferable here because beak blast seems like more of an "i want to stay in" move than a "look at me, i'm a pivot" move. marvel scale would trade some long-term survivability or speed for an immediate defense boost to bolster 37's ability to take mostly-physical contact hits in the case of being statused (and as a bonus, it's conditional, so it works with the concept)

lastly, i'd like to give a potential look at opportunist. this might seem a bit out of left field, but i think 37 would be vulnerable against bulky or flying-resistant setup sweepers whose counterplay to beak blast is simply refusing to engage and clicking the funny setup move. think kingambit, or roost dnite, or a tera'd revenankh. opportunist deters that by giving 37 the exact same stat boosts, making it extremely risky for an opponent expecting a beak blast to respond by clicking, say, swords dance and getting smacked by a +2 beak blast

 

[Robraf]

Most teams run at least one mon with wisp, twave, glare or toxic.

We have Taunt guaranteed so I don‘t see massive issue with that honestly. Like obviously we won‘t have the speed to taunt all the status spreaders but I‘m moreso worried about Will-O and Sludgebomb/Malignant Chain

 

[Robraf]

i think a good way to address this would be to give it either heatproof or thermal exchange to discourage fire-types from hanging around it too often.

I do like Thermal Exchange cause Burn is quite annoying for us and getting an Immunity alongside getting boosted by fire type moves definitely helps 37 into the one type it can‘t burn at all.

Heatproof on the other hand I don‘t really like that much. It doesn’t give us Burn Immunity and just halves the burn damage which is neat but not that relevant. And taking less from Fire Type Attacks I don‘t see as that valuable either. Especially if we get Knock cause Fire Types have to fear getting Knocked.

 

[Shock3600]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Between Dark/Flying and Beak Blast, I'd say the only thing we might inherently struggle with is having a natural defensive profile. Ghost/dark/psychic resists helps bolster our spdef profile, but we are a bit lacking for physical resists. The immunity to ground and dark resist do help give us switch ins, but we are going to be relying on stats to do a lot of heavy lifting if we want to be able to switch in to physical attackers in order to leverage the threat of beak blast. An ability could help provide these switch in opportunities- either through directly bolsteing our defensive profile/bulk, improving our longetivity, or making us more resilient to counterplay such as knock.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I would actually argue this is backwards, in a sense. I don't think we want to capitalize on forced switches- we instead want to increase the threat of forced switches, in order to push the opponent into staying in and accepting the trade. This is mostly semantics but I think an important perspective. I think there's a fairly limited pool of abilities that directly help this, but any ability focused on increasing our offensive potential is going to contribute to it.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

I think it's an important route to consider. I'm really split on if its better to boost our defence, offense, or utility, but I'd say there are some specific defensive/utility abilities that will benefit us in a way that's harder to replicate with increased bulk instead, while boosts to our offense ae more acheivable with stats alone. Abilities increasing longetivity or altering our defensive profile are going to let us more finely tune our matchups into the metagame to try and aim for a beak blast burn.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Hey everyone! Just a quick reminder to avoid directly suggesting abilities until viol and bass says so.

I deleted a fair number of posts that aren't really engaging with the discussion viol and bass is trying to lead as are more jumping the gun on suggestions. I understand ya'll are eager, but let's try to take things a bit more slowly here.

 

[Sivanandi]

Hello! First post in a CAP discussion, and I'm pretty new to both the cap process and the metagame, so please feel free to correct me if I get something wrong

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Others have already discussed switching and various statuses, which I agree with. I'd like to also bring up, though, that Beak Blast is scary cause it can burn physical attackers, which is pretty much negated by physical attackers that can't be burned (Hemogoblin, Gliscor, Ceruledge come to mind). Additionally, some of its weaknesses tend to have mons that hit really well on the special side (Kyurem, Stratagem, Krilowatt come to mind).

I think these might be more of a priority to address in the ability stage than the below question, and I'll explain why after addressing that one

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I would say that while it's fine for the ability to address this, it's also very possible that we can cover this better when we get to the movepool. Beak Blast kind of makes it a guessing game, right? You have 37 in front of your opponent's mon that doesn't wanna get burned, and the mind game is, do I switch and eat a (move that punishes my switch) or do I knock off its boots and risk getting burned? And I bring that up cause I feel like the category of "move that punishes my switch" is a pretty wide one, and we can definitely address this issue there in my opinion. Not that it wouldn't also be nice to have the ability help with this issue, but I hope my point comes across.

Meanwhile, I think it's harder to address a bad match-up independent of switch-ins with your moves. I'm having trouble thinking of a move that you can click in front of a mon that you know is gonna wisp you ("oh siv magic coat" alright alright). Similarly, if the risk is that hemogoblin is gonna e-speed you, what are you really gonna do about that with a move? ("oh siv comeuppance" alright alright). So I think an ability that helps handle some of these better would be more immediately beneficial than one that capitalizes on forcing switches, which I feel like... is already kinda just good by itself? I understand the argument that switching is good counterplay to Beak Blast, but if you're already switching and eating a hit from a 100 BP move I feel like that can already be punishing for losing momentum or taking damage or taking hazard damage or whatnot.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

This is what I'm thinking is a useful route to consider. There are a good amount of abilities that activate upon switch-in that can make switching in itself an action that 37 would want to do, which is one route we could take. Discouraging non-contact moves is tougher, especially since stuff like ice scales or, idk, misty terrain misty seed isn't allowed, but there's some stuff that could do it as well. Also, though, sure you'd lose the tradeoff of boots, but assault vest is an item that exists and you can still click beak blast while wearing it, so it could be a good thing to pair with an ability to be decent against special attackers, maybe? In general I think defensive synergy could be interesting on this mon cause of its relation with stealth rock and the fact that clicking beak blast means we're likely getting hit.

 

[Gekokeso]

Mind the poll jumping people.

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

There's a couple of issues we face by virtue of out typing, some we can solve with a decent ability, others require very specific stuff. The ones that fall in the first category are the following:
- Status: Most flying types are annoyed by status as status combined with a loss of boots really hurts our long term longevity. Most CAP viable flying types that still rely on boots are at least immune to one type of status, such as Moltres and Venomicon. We do not, so we would need something to keep our longevity well enough.
- Speed: Its somewhat weird to determine the most optimal speed for 37 as yes Beak Blast will always go last, but your other moves can certainly finish off weakened opponents before they attack or try to pivot out on us. An ability that can either take advantage of the slow state 37 finds itself with due to the low priority attack, or that can make it slightly tankier to ensure the attack goes through could help.
- Set Up: Im gonna bring this up when making the case for a particular ability when the time comes but there is one of situation that does annoy 37 to a certain degree, and that is that certain setup sweepers that resist beak blast like Gambit or Raging Bolt may choose to try and setup on us, as well as many potential targets like Revenankh and Zamazenta setting up thanks to tera. Admitedlly we could solve this in the move stage as well but abilities can also help in that department.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I feel like this question is being somewhat restrictive as its clearly trying to bring up Stakeout and Analytic rather than actually try and bring up a question with more space to discuss about. Id say a better way to frame the question would be not to just focus about abilities that force switch-ins, but rather abilities that increase the move's general offensive output, as how much damage Beak Blast does to a target staying in is just or even more important that to one switching in.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

Yes to the defensive manner portion to the question, absolutely not to the portion of discouraging non-contact moves. If we make going for contact moves on 37 way too punishing even without Beak Blast then the move is just not gonna be ran, as most contact users wouldn't be staying in anyways. IF we pick a defensive ability it should be one that increases our staying power while actively giving an incentive for the opponent to go for the gamble of clicking the contact move against us.

 

[Spammernoob]

• Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Currently, the build has some issues switching in. Dark/Flying has few relevant resists (mostly Ground immunity and Ghost resistance?) and no safeguards against status (except vs. Prankster copium). This is exacerbated by the fact that we are Physical due to Beak Blast, making Burn especially annoying (not to mention Wisp is common on Ghosts, which we might otherwise want to come in on).

I think this must be addressed somehow, either by making CAP37 more resilient, or by making each switch-in more impactful. If we aim to do the former, it makes more sense to do it in the ability stage, as abilities allow us to address status / passive damage, which cannot be addressed in stats or movepool (at least not on the turn we switch in). If we aim to do the latter, we need to accept that we will often be forced out or be unable to come in on certain mons (eg. Gking) due to the threat of status (ironic). However, we can afford to be more flexible with our ability, as this can always be patched in stats / movepool.

• Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

Forcing a switch inherently gives you an advantage because you get to throw an attack without taking damage in return. Combined with Beak Blast's high pp and non-contact nature, it is basically unpunishable by switching. Thus, I think it's not necessary to double down on punishing forced switches with the ability.

Additionally, abilities that are being discussed for this role, such as Analytic and Stakeout, can be emulated in later stage (eg. stats) so it is not vital to lock in this type of ability. They can be considerations that further incentivize the opponent to take the burn from Beak Blast, or push the impact we make each switch-in, but I think it is not vital to fulfilling the concept. I'm not sure if there are any other abilities that capitalize on switches which provide something unique other than damage (I can't think of any) but those would be more interesting to me as early considerations.

• Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

Using our ability slot defensively is definitely worth considering. As noted before, anything that mitigates chip damage in various ways is much appreciated for CAP37, and cannot be replicated via stats (CAP37 has Taunt which can help in some way vs. slow status mons). I think this route should be explored further, as this uniquely allows us to tune our MUs vs various mons.

I think a specific defensive ability will be ideal here. For instance, if we want to target Kitsunoh / Dragapult, we can consider Thermal Exchange. Alternatively, if we want to target Garganacl, we can consider Shield Dust. The key for this route is to consider CAP37's role and what mons we expect CAP37 to beat, and patch said MUs with an appropriate defensive ability if needed.

I'm not sure what discouraging non-contact moves would entail. Technically, Water Absorb to deny Ogerpon-W works as discouraging a certain non-contact move, but I'm not sure we want to go this route, unless we deem it necessary to fulfill our role.

 

[viol and bass]

I feel like this question is being somewhat restrictive as its clearly trying to bring up Stakeout and Analytic rather than actually try and bring up a question with more space to discuss about. Id say a better way to frame the question would be not to just focus about abilities that force switch-ins, but rather abilities that increase the move's general offensive output, as how much damage Beak Blast does to a target staying in is just or even more important that to one switching in.

Just to clarify this question, abilities that capitalize on forced switches are not necessarily limited to Stakeout and Analytic. I highlighted the "force out" interaction in particular since it was discussed extensively in our role discussion (see this excellent post by Guingil as an example) as a common interaction particularly early-game. Damage output abilities can punish switch-ins and in fact are valid for this question, and other abilities can make use of forced switches in other ways. One angle is thinking of a forced switch as a free turn. It's a different question from "is it important to increase our raw damage output via our ability", which I don't think is a productive discussion, particularly since that can be entirely dealt with in later stages. Just clarifying my intent with this question but let's keep things on track.

 

[Amamama]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Dark Flying is a relatively ability agnostic typing, in the sense that both it’s offensive and defensive profile are potent enough to not require any sort of patching up via ability.
The offensive coverage is so strong that you have a very open moveset as well which means the ability also doesn’t need to provide utility or moveslot compression of any sort.
Overall this means we can really focus on how Beak Blast Functions and how to abuse both its power and conditional effect best.
Even then we have so much flexibility left in future stages, that we could even look at relatively low impact abilities, that patch up minor weaknesses or provide interesting gameplay interactions with beak blast or the game pattern it creates, rather than looking for powermaxing right now.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I think this can play a role in triggering the condition for BBs effect more often, but idt that is particularly necessary to do so via ability. Even just having more special Bulk or an ability that makes it harder for special attackers to tackle 37 can work to force more contact hits.
That said abilities that create pinning situations where the opponent is forced to consider the threat of beak blasts burn as well as the threat of beak blasts (or other moves) damage are very pro concept as they play up the importance of the conditional effect.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

It’s definitely possible to utilize the ability Slot for more defensive utility or a better defensive profile since the offensive coverage is already so self sufficient. That said same can be said about the defensive profile of the mon. You don’t need much more defensive utility to make it strong.
I do not like however trying to discourage contact even more. While this does play into the ability to force switches against contact move users, it also makes the decision to switch out way easier. Instead of creating a pinning scenario, CAP 37 would make progress via punishing switches. Imo we want to encourage contact moves to a degree so that there’s a real consideration for the opponent to play into Beak Blasts conditional effect.

 

[aaronarium]

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

• I'm not sure I'm in the camp that our ability should be spent increasing the ease of switching in versus getting the most out of the turns where we're already fielded. If we're assuming that we're gonna be soaking Knock (and would frequently have HDB removed), and assuming we're going to be tanky enough to get the most out of BB, then I think switching in would only become truly troublesome after we've already established ourselves on the field. Of course, there are a lot of defensive abilities that would be good for us in general that have a "side effect" of making the switch easier, but I think choosing one of those abilities still needs to either help us with specific matchups or work to bolster BB itself.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

• I personally don't think forcing the switch itself is as critical compared to discouraging switches to something unbothered by BB. If we come out versus a Pokemon that either cannot handle burn or cannot deal with 37 without getting burnt, we want to make the opponent's choice to switch to something that is neither of those things as difficult as possible. The two main paths I see for this are to either choose an ability that specifically punishes switching, or to choose an ability that somehow gives special attackers as difficult a time dealing with 37 as physical (contact) ones.

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

• The vulnerability to Electric/Ice/Fairy is major in the sense that the most common moves of these types are both special and non-contact, but this is something that can be patched up in the stats stage with better special bulk. Personally, I think role compression is a more important issue. Although I personally think Dark and Flying have the right moves to help with this and our limited moveslots (given that BB is mandatory), none of the ones I have in mind are universal moves for the type and therefore we can't count on their inclusion. I find viol's example of how NG helped Ramnarok to be relevant because essentially what it did for Inferno was compress reliable STAB and status spreading into a single moveslot, so maybe we should be thinking about if there are any synergies that can relieve some of the burden of our movepool so we're freer to include ones that complement BB.

 

[a fairy]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?
I'm not a big fan of our weaknesses right now. They're primarily specially inclined, and they're pretty popular types for damage between stuff like Volt Switch and Moonblast and the Ice-type trio of attacks, that kinda stuff. I'm not specifically saying we need to grab an immunity ability, but if we have some way to limit the weakness to these types of special moves, I think that's something that the Ability stage is uniquely qualified to tackle.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?
Hmmm where could this conversation have originated from /lh. Anyway, I'm actually not of a mind for our ability to do so. I can see the value here, but I don't think it should be our goal IMO. Switchouts already have a lot of benefit generally speaking for the team forcing the switch, and good players are able to capitalize on it without being handled a tool labelled "Switchout Bonker", yknow? I think this is a legitimate avenue to take, but it's not super motivating to me.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?
If we can find an angle to discourage non-contact moves that seems neat. Not sure any ability pops up in mind to me, but that'd be the coolest IMO. OTOH, I'm way less motivated by ease of tanking hits, I do like ease of switching in personally. These seem like similar things, but I do feel like later stages are much stronger at helping with tanking hits (it's not polljumping IMO if I simply state that tasks are easier later /lh!), but switching in is definitely a difficult task. A 'mon like that that can only switch in on a teammate getting KO'd is rough, so I'd be preferring abilities that help with that.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?
If we can find an angle to discourage non-contact moves that seems neat. Not sure any ability pops up in mind to me, but that'd be the coolest IMO. OTOH, I'm way less motivated by ease of tanking hits, I do like ease of switching in personally. These seem like similar things, but I do feel like later stages are much stronger at helping with tanking hits (it's not polljumping IMO if I simply state that tasks are easier later /lh!), but switching in is definitely a difficult task. A 'mon like that that can only switch in on a teammate getting KO'd is rough, so I'd be preferring abilities that help with that.

since there's no direct way to discourage non-contact moves at large (you can discourage special moves but there are like 3 options there and they're all non-starters for some reason or other), i think the best avenue of discouraging non-contact moves is to lean one of two ways:

1. abilities that discourage clicking status moves
2. abilities that discourage a specific type or types whose usage mostly consists of non-contact moves

the first category of moves can also solve our issue of 37 being relatively status-weak or setup-weak depending on what's chosen. we can block or absorb or dodge status moves, or ignore or steal opponents' setup, or just have something that synergizes well with universally assumed move taunt. the second category is more interesting. let's go in-depth with it to see what types it would be best to try and discourage:

• first off, i'll ignore ghost, dark, grass, psychic and ground. 37's typing heavily disincentivizes clicking these moves already, so it doesn't need an ability to discourage them further
• fire has quite a few non-contact moves that are heavily used on commonly seen mons. even though 37 isn't particularly weak to fire, this is probably our best bet to try and discourage clicks of because it's primarily used by fire-types (obviously), who don't fear beak blast's burn at all. scaring those out produces more opportunities to get utility out of beak blast in general
• electric, ice, fairy and rock are also good candidates. they're going to be clicked often against 37 due to its weaknesses to them, and the vast majority of these types of moves you'll be seeing aren't making contact (especially ice and fairy). some of these don't actually have any abilities that directly interact with them defensively, but abilities that can offensively scare these types of pokemon into not being in front of 37 in the first place also work well
• water and steel have a good amount of non-contact moves being used by some of the most common mons in the meta, so those are other options to consider
• other typings outside of these either have enough contact moves that discouraging use of them would do as much harm as good (or more), don't interact with any abilities, or both. unless i missed something, of course—please tell me if i did

 

[viol and bass]

Thanks for a very productive conversation everybody! I'm going to summarize my reading of people's responses to these questions, then we will head into ability submissions.

Firstly, the general mood seems to be that we are starting with a pretty strong chassis. While CAP37 faces some issues as any CAP would at this point, many of these can be dealt with later. We likely don't have to use our ability slot to patch major holes. Note that it still may be important to use our ability slot to answer some of the problems people have addressed, but there seems to be a fair amount of ability freedom overall. There may be an opportunity to use lower-impact abilities that affect a few matchups we'd like to hone in on.

Although we're in a good place overall, there were some common issues identified. By far the largest ones that are seen as necessary to address via our ability are difficulties switching in safely and vulnerability to status (which are connected). Spammernoob had an interesting angle on this which resonated with me, saying that we need to either make switching in easier via our ability, or make each switch-in more impactful in some fashion, which opens up the ability slot more.

Some other issues identified were the fact that our primary vulnerabilities are to special-based pokemon (which may discourage pro-concept Beak Blast interactions), issues with fire-type or otherwise burn-immune contact users, opposing setup sweepers, and our hazard weakness, among others.

On forced switches: There is broad agreement that switching out of CAP37 should be made difficult in some way. However, it is largely seen as unecessary to use our ability slot to capitalize on a forced switch (perhaps the correct framing is "increase the threat to the opponent of switching out"- see this post by Shock3600 on the distinction). There was some discussion of "pinning" the opponent being a pro-concept interaction (see this post from Amamama), but the broad consensus seems to be that this is something that can be dealt with later. Overall I'm skeptical of many of these abilities based on the discussion we've had, but If you want to make an argument for one, I'd recommend focusing on the pro-concept angle.

On defensively-oriented abilities: There is a broad openness to these abilities, with a particular focus on status-oriented ones, as well as ones that help us get on the field (there is overlap between these categories). There is specifically a distaste for abilities that punish contact (note that my question was actually asking about abilities that dissuade non-contact moves). I agree that contact-punishing abilities are dangerous territory with our chosen concept and move and I'd be unlikely to slate one without very good reasoning behind it.
----

With that, I will be opening ability submissions. Here are a few questions to use as discussion points for your submission.

• What synergy does this ability have with Beak Blast? How does it encourage pro-concept interactions?
• How does this ability help us find a spot on a team or set us apart from similar pokemon?
• If this ability is centered on switch-in opportunities or status resilence, what matchups are you focused on "tuning"?

Planning to leave about 72-96 hours for this. Note the ability banlists in the OP.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i kind of jumped the gun on this one, sorry about that, but now i am formally submitting thermal exchange. most of the justification for it has already been stated earlier, but boiling it down:

• it mitigates 37's weakness to burn, which is probably the most common status it'll be encountering that it can't taunt its way out of (by way of scald, fast wisp users, opposing 37s, etc)
• it helps 37's matchup against fire-types, which it can't really have pro-concept interactions with. making fire-types less willing to be on the same field as 37 will increase the chances that it can utilize beak blast to either burn or threaten a burn
• it provides a deterrent from non-fire-types clicking fire-type moves, many of which aren't contact

 

[Shock3600]

Going to be stealing from some discord on the discord from before we chose a type and water/flying was on the table. Submitting Water Absorb.

What synergy does this ability have with Beak Blast? How does it encourage pro-concept interactions?
As has been discussed time and time again, Beak Blast is all about punishing contact moves. The move that is probably by far the most notable non contact physical move right now- is ivy cudgel. Going to get into the Ogerpon (Wellspring) matchup more specifically in the third question, but this changes beak blast from "kinda sort punishes physical moves" to "punishes most physical moves." Pro-conccept at its core.

How does this ability help us find a spot on a team or set us apart from similar pokemon?
Bolstering Dark/Flying's defensive profile with a water immunity actually adss a lot to what we can do. Ogerpon is the main target, but it lets us ignore scalds and block flip turns from Alo, gives a water immunity as a stop gap against Walking Wake, and makes us much more relibale at switching into and punishing Hamurott, along with other more niche threats. While this isn't a huge list, it adds to our target list in a meaningful

If this ability is centered on switch-in opportunities or status resilence, what matchups are you focused on "tuning"?
The main target here is Ogerpon, but stopping the risk of scald burns is meaningful for our fear of status. Ogerpon's stabs are now blanking into us, giving us a key switch in opportunity. They are forced to resort to contact moves to ever touch us. While knock off lets rocks chip us down, the fact that later we can heal that off on a predicted ivy Cudgel helps counteract it. Even if Ogerpon is bringing play rough, its still being forced to rely on contact moves that it can't always afford in its moveslot. Forcing the main physical threat that is able to ignore our burns to respect beak blast is huge for our concept.

Water Absorb lets us gain a meaningful target that we're otherwise lacking, helps mitigate a status weakness, gives us a more solid place in the team builder, but doesn't add too much directly to our offenses or defenses, letting us still play up our strengths in the stat and moveset stages.

 

[Sivanandi]

Alright, I have a couple abilities to bring up, and then one that I will be using most of my time here defending. I will also leave some of the more discussed and popular suggestions to others, because they've been brought up before and I think they are very good and can be better defended by others who aren't promoting an agenda like I am. Specifically those are Thermal Exchange and Stakeout, both of which I think are very good pro-concept suggestions.

these options are lowkey fighting for their life

Tinted Lens is one that I was thinking about, but didn't see much discussion of. It's rather similar to Stakeout in a couple ways, I think. The "counterplay" mentioned for Beak Blast burning your phys. attacker by a lot of people has been switching out, and something like Tinted Lens would be very similar to Stakeout in that it just makes Beak Blast harder to find a good switch-in for. It also lowers the list of Pokemon that are like "ah I can probably just stay in and be a special attacker and out-damage this thing and be ok" because, well, now you're gonna eat a 100BP STAB move to the face and you're not allowed to resist it (unless you're magnezone or whatever). Overall, I think it's basically like a slightly different and arguably less cool cousin to Stakeout, which again I'm sure will be getting its own defense in this thread shortly, so I'm just bringing it up because I feel like it's a similar enough role and I didn't see much discussion of it.

Wandering Spirit is one that I was briefly considering, since something people brought up was that there are mons like Snaelstrom or Gliscor that can fight CAP 37 without caring about being burned, and Wandering Spirit would help make those matchups a little less favorable for those mons. However, after reading others' discussion about the matter, I find that I do agree that we don't really need MORE punishment of contact moves, so I've become a bit less excited about this one. That said, the point of it was to punish the contact-makers that aren't getting punished by contacting beak blast already, so there could still be space for it? Unfortunately most of the negative abilities are banned, so I can't really bring up the possibility of a Truant + Skill Swap strategy to handle stuff like Gliscor

Now for some that I believe in a bit more. With DaddyBuzzwole helpfully pointing out a list of typings that CAP 37 is gonna have some trouble dealing with, it opened up a couple more interesting suggestions in my head that are more offensively oriented, listed below.

there's some sauce here

Out of Fire, ice, electric, rock, fairy, water and steel:

3 are weak to steel (rock, fairy, and ice), making me wonder about the possibility of Steelworker or Steely Spirit. As I said earlier, I think part of the Beak Blast mindgame is "what if CAP37 clicks something that isn't Beak Blast that punishes my Beak Blast counterplay," and I think having a nice strong Iron Head or Heavy Slam or Gyro Ball or whatever could be an interesting factor to add into that mindgame.

2 are weakened by Thick Fat (fire and ice). Admittedly, this one doesn't do much to cover our status vulnerability, which kind of makes it look like Thermal Exchange's less cool little brother, but I will point out that we have stuff like Kyurem, Weavile, or Ramnarok running around with non-contact ice STAB which can just get around Beak Blast's whole thing even if they're running physical. I think it's an interesting trade-off.

2 are weak to rock (fire and ice), which of course made me reconsider Rocky Payload. I think this one is a tough sell because does anyone really want to make Bombirdier 2 here. However, having a nice strong rock slide to nail a prediction with, or hit stuff like Hemogoblin with, etc, could still be worth considering.

4 are weak to ground (fire, electric, rock, steel)... well, there's no Groundworker, unfortunately. So maybe there could be an ability that makes a strong ground-type coverage move easier to click? The first that comes to mind is Mold Breaker, although admittedly, as I said earlier in this thread-- I'm not exactly an expert on this meta, so I don't know how many levitate users are really running amok. This ability comes with other stuff, too, but again-- not really sure how much of this is actually relevant. The best I can really do from a quick skim of the Viability rankings is that it has some interactions with ignoring Multiscale on Cresceidon and Dragonite, ignoring Levitate or Bulletproof on Equilibra (and levitate on Stratagem), ignoring Good as Gold on Gholdengo if we're planning on clicking some status moves against it, ignoring Stick Hold on Shox if we're knock off-ing it... idk, feel free to help me out here if you're more knowledgable. I just feel like it could potentially offer a good "screw you" button to some of the mons that could cause CAP 37 some problems.

4 hit us super-effectively (electric, ice, rock, fairy) which of course makes me think of Filter / Solid Rock / Prism Armor. (For the sake of the artists, let's say Filter for now.) Dark-Flying is a pretty good type defensively, but four weaknesses isn't a low amount, especially with a lot of those weaknesses having strong offensive coverage as people have pointed out. Filter helps hinder this and lets CAP 37 stick around longer to potentially pivot or beak blast or whatnot.

There are a good amount of abilities that activate upon switch-in that can make switching in itself an action that 37 would want to do, which is one route we could take.

I said this in my first post, and I still think these are worth considering, so here's a brief collection of some of these.

welcome back zacian

As you can guess from the title of the hide tag, one of the abilities coming to mind for this... WOULD have been intrepid sword, but that's banned, so instead I'm gonna throw out Download for consideration. This makes CAP 37's offensive prowess scarier. Since I don't want to make assumptions on the stat spread we end up with, I'll just say depending on that, there's a possibility that we can use this ability to play more mind-games with when exactly we're switching in and how threatening CAP 37 will be at various points in the battle. It also (unlike intrepid sword) is something we can reset by switching out and back in, which keeps it as a more constant pressure during the match rather than a one-time thing, and since we've decided switching in is an aspect we want to focus on in this process, I think this could be an interesting dynamic to add to that as well.

Intimidate is also one I want to bring up, though, again... I don't think this one feels as strong as it did in my head when I made my first post here. Dropping attack is a very anti-contact-move ability, and we've got plenty of that, of course. The main reason I wanted to still bring it up is that it could lead to a more interesting interaction with Defiant Kingambit, depending on whether or not Intimidate or one of 37's other abilities is used... maybe this one's best brought up in a secondary ability suggestion phase. We'll see.

These next two are very much some "I have actually no idea if this would do anything" suggestions, so I'm just bringing it up to be shot down by, once again, people who know more about what they're talking about here. Screen Cleaner and Cloud Nine would give CAP 37 more reasons or opportunities to do something useful just by switching into the battle. Of course, this depends greatly on the prevalence of weather or screens in the CAP metagame, which I'm fairly unsure about.

Okay, all of that was just the warm up (dang i talk a lot). As I said earlier, I'm here to push an agenda, one that you may have seen me pushing on the CAP discord to mixed (largely negative lol) reception. Still, I believe in it enough that I still want to make a case for it here, so here goes.

could we rename it "beak pouch" for flavor purposes? i think "cheeks" are mammal-exclusive

CHEEK POUCH
(featuring as guest appearances, Harvest, Ripen, and Cud Chew)

I think this ability could be really fun to use (especially if paired with the move Recycle, but that's a discussion for later). There are SO many berries in this game. In this discussion, we've identified a lot of CAP 37's weaknesses, and, sure, maybe it shouldn't be able to consistently handle all of them. There's not really any ability that would accomplish that, anyway. But Cheek Pouch takes advantage of the extreme versatility of berries to let CAP 37 potentially mitigate any of these weaknesses, leaving the player to choose which one they want their CAP 37 to be best at dealing with for their team.

• Scared of status? Run Lum berry, and watch as you shut down that annoying will-o-wisping ghost, or even win a mirror-match against an opposing beak blast CAP 37, perhaps. Or, if you're scared of specific status, you could even get more specific and bring a rawst berry, cheri berry, etc. If we're going the Harvest route, you could even run Resto Chesto and keep CAP 37 healthy throughout the game, healing off damage taken from switching in on stealth rocks, resisted attacks, or hits eaten while Beak Blasting.
• Wanna heal yourself a lot to keep this menace in the game for way longer than it really should? There's of course Resto Chesto as I mentioned earlier, but you could also run the classic Sitrus Berry + Cheek Pouch combo and heal 58% of CAP 37's health without taking a moveslot or turn, so you can click Beak Blast even more often!
• Wanna address a specific threat in the meta? We've got the type resist berries- Charti for rock, Yache for ice, Wacan for electric, and Roseli for fairy. Lessen the damage of an attack, and then depending on which of the berry abilities we're going with, heal off the damage or regain the berry to potentially tank another hit.

I think these abilities provide a level of flexibility to CAP 37 that's hard to replicate with other abilities, which I think is pro-concept as it's harder to KNOW if it's a good idea to stay in and click Double-Edge on your Caribolt to attempt to at least get CAP 37 off the field, because if it's Wacan berry cheek pouch, well... it's still alive, your Caribolt is burned, and it healed half the damage you just did to it anyway. I think making CAP 37 into a more customizable threat makes it harder to know when the right play is to switch out or to attack.

I'll address, of course, the most common push-back I've received on this suggestion, which is that hey, I wanna run boots on this mon.

You still can!

Using Cheek Pouch is optional. As others have said, this CAP so far is shaping up to be pretty good regardless of what ability we decide to give it. Cheek Pouch is just adding options, not restricting them to berries. In my opinion, I think the flexibility and unknown factor as to "is their 37 running boots or a berry" is worth the trade-off of an ability that would do something while you're wearing boots. I get it if people disagree, but I think that healing 58% without spending a turn, for example, is definitely worth taking 25% when switching in. Plus, I think the dynamic that these abilities create with Knock Off is really interesting (especially if we get recycle, as you can't recycle something that got knocked off, which incentivizes knockers to potentially knock us earlier and then get burned by beak blast).

I dunno I just think it's cool ok

 

[escarlata]

Previously suggested Neutralising Gas to help against Libra, Hemo and Gliscor, but ran a bit of calcs and realised that Stakeout is equally as good against Gliscor and Hemo, and BB still doesn't do anything to Libra even ignoring Bulletproof.

Instead, gonna suggest Sticky Hold.

One of the best traits of our typing is being arguably the best Dark resist in the game, and being pseudo-weak to Knock Off is its main downside. I know that we chose Dark/Flying acknowledging that having the opponent want to knock us despite the resist and BB is pro-concept; but thinking about it further, the weakness to Knock makes no sense to keep, since Knock is often clicked on the switch, in which case they don't really have to play the Knock Off vs BB minigame.

What synergy does this ability have with Beak Blast? How does it encourage pro-concept interactions?

Knock Off
The obvious benefit is that we can hold HDB and be the best Knock Off absorber in the game. While Knock Off itself is discouraged, common users of the move often carry another contact move that they would want to click into us, which our access to BB plays a part in dissuading, such as Rillaboom with U-turn and Tusk with Close Combat.

Aside from HBD, if we want to run a Choice Band or Assault Vest, they are also unknockable. Choice Band lets us brute force through the likes of Gliscor, whereas being able to hold Assault Vest without fearing knock means that we are indirectly forcing the opponent into a contact move.

U-turn
Finally, I want to talk about how being Knock Off resistant is also pro-concept at punishing U-turn. Despite BB threatening the attacker a burn, getting U-turned on is more of a momentum loss for us. One of the understated demerits of BB is that it is literally telegraphed at the start of the turn. Once the opponent clicks U-turn (or any other move), they immediately know if we are clicking Beak Blast or not.

In a situation where we lose boots, we are forced into a pretty awkward scenario. Being weak to rocks (on what is likely a bulky offense mon), switching into a resisted attack with SR up already puts us at 50~60%, which already puts us into range where we want to heal. If we were to heal, they are pretty much free to U-turn out without playing the BB mindgame. In fact, U-turn is free for them to click even if we were to click BB that turn. If the opponent see the charging up message, they immediately know that we are not healing on that turn and can switch into something that can punish us at ~half health; and similarly if they don't see the charging message, they know that we are either healing or using a Dark move. It kinda pushes us into a vicious cycle where we are constantly on the backfoot.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it is actually pretty important for us to patch up our pseudo-weakness to Knock Off, which makes Sticky Hold pro-concept.

 

[Robraf]

Stakeout

What synergy does this ability have with Beak Blast? How does it encourage pro-concept interactions?

I will answer this by giving an example of a very realistic scenario.

Our opp has a out on the field and is threating our . Obviously Knock Off or Headlong Rush are likely to be coming our way. 37 with its Dark/Flying Typing is overall a very solid typing to come in on Tusk. Now lets say we swap Dengo out into our 37 and get Knocked. Obviously getting knocked is detrimental as we lose our very important Boots that help 37 in swapping into mons without the concern of Rocks being around. This means that 37 coming in on something like Tusk has to be worthwhile even taking into consideration that we lose our Boots on switch-in. Now Stakeout comes into play. The Tusk Player is aware of the BB threat coming his way but with Stakeout our opp has to choose between two options that he would rather avoid. He has to pick a poison which is why I call this a very effective pin. Tusk can either stay in and hit us with a move that is most likely contact based and gets burned while also taking a 100 Base Power SE Beak Blast or the opp can switch and take a massive Stakeout boosted BB anyway. Even with resistances you are likely to hit so hard that it will mitigate the loss of the Boots. Obviously this will still depend on the Stats of 37 but with over 100 we already will deal a lot of damage. And this example doesn’t just apply to but also for something like or and as well as and some more.

How does this ability help us find a spot on a team or set us apart from similar pokemon?

I honestly don‘t think there is much of a comparison I can draw here as Stakeout is only on Thievul and Mabosstiff which both lack coverage and just overall Stats. 37 will be unique in the way that it can basically function like a new Pursuit. There isn‘t really a Pokemon that can punish switching so that alone will set us apart from other Flyings or Darks that would rival our spot on a Team.

 

[aaronarium]

Guts

Too tired right now to do a proper write-up but the bullet points are:

• Frees us up to soak status, including burn. Can provide more switch-in opportunities into status moves.
• Powers up BB.
• Improves matchups against Electric and Fire types, who are commonly non-contact and have an associated status move. Obviously Electric still isn't fabulous since we're weak to it and they resist BB, but we still have our Dark STAB and any other coverage we may get. Also improves matchups against Scald-using Waters, who are also commonly non-contact.
• Granted, our interaction with Knock and hazards gets a lot weirder with Flame Orb vs. HDB, but it's not impossible for us to adjust later on in the process to not having reliable status self-infliction.

 

[Robraf]

Wonder Skin

This would be an ability moreso leaning into the defensive utility. Decreasing the accuracy of all Utility Moves as well as Defog and the likes to 50%, makes pressing something like Will-O not entirely free. The opp has to consider the miss chance which would incentivize them moreso to directly attack 37 which would then give BB more opportunities to fish for a burn. There are some very specific funny things this ability does as well such as making Parting-Shot 50% accurate which could make it stuck against 37.

Just to list some relevant moves this would effect:

• Encore
• Taunt
• Will-O
• Parting-Shot
• Thunder Wave
• Strength Sap