It's time to choose CAP 29's concept! CAP 29's TL
Birkal picked a slate of 7 concepts from
the concept submissions thread! Before you vote, it's important that you read each concept carefully, as this will guide the discussion for the entire CAP Process. I would also suggest reading the
discussion on specific concepts that occurred for 24 Hours after concepts were slated, in order to further inform your decision.
This will be a Ranked Pairs vote (RP) (a form of voting where each candidate is ranked according to head to head matchups with each of its competitors in a directed acyclic graph), the details of which were discussed
here.
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IMPORTANT: When voting,
use only the name of the author! The list of possible votes include:
quziel
Tommaniacal
-Voltage-
Rabia
chuckeroo777
Darek851
2spoopy4u
This poll will be open for
24 hours. The concept submissions are quoted below in order of submission.
quziel,
Defective Ability
Name: Defective Ability
Description: This Pokemon manages to work around an ability that is generally considered harmful, and is viable, or even better for it.
Justification: Defective Ability is an
Actualization concept; aiming to create a Pokemon that works around, or works with, an ability that would be considered bad on most pokemon.
There is not a single Pokemon ranked above NU that has a generally negative ability; for good reason, while most pokemon gain a benefit from their ability, these Pokemon are held back. Golisopod, the currently highest ranked pokemon with a negative ability is also unique among its brethren in that its movepool is set up to synergize, and benefit from its ability Emergency Exit, with First Impression benefiting heavily from being switched out directly after use. A non-exhaustive list of negative abilities is Color Change, Defeatist, Emergency Exit, Klutz, Normalize, Slow Start, Stall, Truant. These abilities are yet-untouched by CAP, and I believe that exploring them with typings, movepools, and stats specifically meant to work with, and work around their shortcomings can help us to understand more about how abilities interact with CAPs, and how important the ability slot really is. I do not consider a NCA to be a defective ability as it does not specifically have to be planned around.
This concept aims to question how impactful these abilities are when their downsides are specifically planned for, their strengths, if any, are accentuated, and how viable of a CAP we can make with a handicap in the ability stage.
Questions To Be Answered:
- How much of a drawback is a negative ability? How much should a negative ability be compensated for in the typing, move, and stats stages?
- Are there some negative abilities that are more suited to exploration in a CAP process? Why or Why not?
- If a negative ability is chosen for a primary what abilities are suitable for a secondary ability slot? Purely negative ones, or is there a situation where a pokemon would prefer an ability generally thought of as negative?
- How does typing interact with a negative ability like this; slow start obviously wants a Toxic immunity due to how long it'll stay on the field, but is it needed, do other abilities have strong typing-ability interactions.
- How can movepool change the impact of a harmful ability? Golisopod shows that it is possible to leverage the early switch out, are other negative abilities something that can be leveraged or minimized with the correct movepool?
- How much do stats have to compensate for a negative ability, what are the ideal stat spreads for each negative ability?
- How can we define a "generally harmful ability"? What are some metrics to define it? Are comparisons with neutral abilities helpful?
- Which abilities can be worked with? Which abilities can only be worked around? Is it better to choose an ability that can be worked with? or only around?
Tommaniacal,
Game of Inches
Name: Game of Inches
Description: A Pokémon that explores the use of incremental damage and recovery effects in the CAP metagame.
Justification: This is an
Actualization concept. In a meta full of high damage dealers and walls with perfect recovery, it would allow exploration in some of the other types of damage and recovery. Another idea worth considering are the ways to dissuade or block these effects. This Pokémon does not have to be completely passive with its moves, but it would be beneficial to consider attacking moves for their additional effects, not their damage output.
Questions to be answered:
- How important are incremental, residual, and any other forms of indirect damage in the current meta?
- Which effects, whether they are moves, abilities, or anything else, should be considered incremental?
- Which damaging moves would be useful for their secondary effects and not for their damage output?
- How can incremental effects be dissuaded or blocked?
- In what ways can incremental effects be worthwhile over traditional forms of damage and recovery?
- How should this Pokémon's limitations in damage and recovery be controlled? Through a lack of moves, stats, or a combination of the two?
- How should it fare against Stallbreakers? Should they be left as checks/counters, or should this Pokémon have ways to handle them?
-Voltage-,
Limit Break
Name: Limit Break
Description: A Pokemon that is able to increase its damage output specifically by taking damage itself.
Justification: This is an
Archetype concept with hints of a
Actualization sprinkled in that really focuses on a single question: “How can we incentivize a Pokemon taking damage?” There are numerous ways of doing so, all of which having incredibly varied means of producing increased damage output. However, the goal here is to provide this Pokemon with a way to truly threaten the opponent as it takes damage.
Questions to be Answered
- How do we incentivize our Pokemon taking damage?
- What are some existing examples of Pokemon in this and other metagames that use taking damage to their advantage (if there are any at all)?
- How many times do we want this Pokemon to take damage before it gets a power boost?
- Would we rather CAP29 get its boost from taking damage directly from its opponent, or from residual damage from status, hazards, recoil and other indirect damage?
- How effective offensively should this Pokemon be before taking damage?
- Should self-inflicted damage yield a similar power boost, or should the boost come solely from the actions of the opponent?
- Which type combinations would inherently allow for this Pokemon to take many repeated hits? What about combinations that would inherently limit the amount of hits this Pokemon can take?
- Are there any abilities that actively encourage a Pokemon to take damage?
Rabia,
Boxing Gloves
Name: Boxing Gloves (alternatively known as "god help me my typing sucks")
Description: A Pokemon designed to be an effective wallbreaker that lacks a great offensive typing
Justification: This would be an
Actualization concept. The idea would be to have a CAP that despite a poor offensive typing (think Normal, Bug, Poison, Grass) still manages to be a potent wallbreaker. This could be as a result of great coverage, solid bulk, or utility options to help provide a buffer.
Questions To Be Answered:
- How much set divergence should be encouraged? In specific, how heavily skewed should the movepool be towards that of a wallbreaker?
- Focusing in more: some wallbreakers that suit this concept are Melmetal, Scizor, and Rillaboom. These Pokemon have dedicated, all-out attacking wallbreaker sets as is (Choice Band on all of them comes to mind), but there are also sets that capitalize on other strengths these Pokemon have. Melmetal has run defensive sets with Acid Armor + Body Press in previous OU metagames; Scizor can be a potent setup sweeper with Swords Dance and in the past has run specially defensive sets with Defog; and Rillaboom sometimes goes dedicated sweeper sets with Swords Dance and a Life Orb or Grassy Seed.
- What makes an offensive typing lackluster/mediocre? Is it entirely a matter of looking at a type resistances chart and seeing that said typing is strong against few and weak against many? Or are there other factors at play?
- Can a typing be considered bad for reasons beyond type effectiveness, i.e. can a typing be bad on a specific Pokemon but good on another?
- How do movepool and coverage options play into this? Consider Gyarados, for example, whose best Flying-type attack (for its stat spread) is Bounce, a fairly unreliable attack, but it gets helpful coverage like Earthquake and Power Whip to hit otherwise solid answers in Toxapex and Slowbro.
- Similarly, how could CAP29 benefit from utility options to make wallbreaking easier for it? Pokemon like Choice Specs Magearna are partly so good because of access to Trick to cripple their defensive answers, and we occasionally see Toxic randomly thrown on an offensive Pokemon to lure in and cripple its answers (Melmetal, for instance).
- Is it within the realm of reasonable to have a secondary typing count as compensation? Or should the typing as a whole be mediocre/poor to stay true to theme?
- Consider Nidoking, for instance, whose primary typing of Poison is fairly bad on its own because it's resisted by or ineffective against quite a lot and strong against not so much. Ground, on the other hand, is notoriously good offensively, with some builders mandating a Ground-immune Pokemon on every team. Of course, Nidoking has other things going for it that are the primary reasons it's such a potent breaker---coverage and ability---but typing lends it a super spammable STAB attack and some extra defensive presence.
- How integral a role should pivoting be, if at all?
- Choice Band Scizor makes much of its progress with its STAB U-turn, and other potent wallbreakers like Rillaboom, Choice Band Flygon, Choice Specs Rotom, and Inteleon have made use of pivoting moves to apply consistent pressure and support other offensive teammates.
chuckeroo777,
Hidden Potential
Name - Hidden Potential
Description - This Pokemon is designed to make use of Multi-Attack, exploring how a Hidden Power-esque move interacts with the modern meta.
Justification - This is an actualization concept, focusing on the use of a niche move. Users of Hidden Power filled a similar niche, but are not present in the SS metagame. This concept explores the strengths and weaknesses of this item based move.
Questions to be answered -
- What gaps in coverage was Hidden Power used to fill? Are those gaps still relevant in today's meta?
- What roles work well for a Pokemon with variable coverage? What abilities can help it in those roles?
- Does such a Pokemon need to be a physical attacker, or can Multi-Attack work as mixed coverage?
- How does this Pokemon function with or without a memory? Should Multi-Attack still be useful after getting its item Knocked Off?
- Are multiple Multi-Attack types viable and/or healthy? Is there a balance between raw power and predictability that needs to be reached?
- How do different Multi-Attack types affect team building? How obvious should the type be from team preview?
Darek851,
Boosting and Blasting
Name: Boosting and Blasting
Description: A Pokemon that sets up while simultaneously dealing damage.
Justification: This is an Actualization concept as it is a role that not too many Pokemon have filled to a great degree. Notable examples of this would be Serperior and Z-move Kommo-O in SM and now Scale Shot Garchomp(although still reliant on Swords Dance), but this concept still remains very unexplored. I believe that making a Pokemon that actualizes this role will let us explore the nature of set-up moves and their typical counterplay.
Questions to be Answered:
-What moves/abilities can allow you to boost while doing significant damage?
-How does counterplay to setup moves change when the Pokemon is able to attack while setting up?
-Besides certain moves, what other options are there to allow a Pokemon to accomplish both simultaneously?
-A mon of this nature has the potential to snowball out of hand. What measures should be taken to prevent this mon from being uncompetitive?
-Does the concept automatically lend itself to a sweeper role, or are there other roles that it can take on?
-Do we want the boosting + attacking move to be the Pokemon's main STAB, or supplemental coverage?
-What effect does forcing players to choose between going for more damage vs going for damage+boosting have on a game?
2spoopy4u,
Bulletproof Glass
taken & adapted from Cretacerus's CAP 22 submission
Name: Bulletproof Glass
Description: A Pokémon which, despite its mediocre defensive stats, poses a considerable defensive threat in the metagame.
Justification: This is an
Archetype concept, as we would be creating a Pokemon within a defensive archetype whose effectiveness should be dependent on factors other than its bulk. This approach would allow us to add a defensive Pokemon with a unique scope and playstyle, explore what constitutes various archetypes and roles within the game, and act as a means to further learn about the current metagame environment and specifically the requirements it holds on defensive Pokémon.
Questions:
- How do we go about deciding which offensive threats this Pokemon should pose a defensive threat to?
- What is the full spectrum of defensive roles in Pokemon (wall, tank, etc), and which one(s) should we aim for?
- What constitutes "low" or "mediocre" defenses? How low can the bulk of a defensive Pokemon reasonably be, and are there certain type resistances, abilities, or moves that would let us push our bulk lower than others?
- Is there a relationship between a Pokemon’s speed and its defensive capabilities? If so, what kind of speed benchmarks will this pokemon realistically need to hit? What's the difference between a defensive Pokemon that merely benefits from high speed, and one that's dependent on its speed to effectively check opposing threats?
- Can offensive strength be a contributor to a Pokemon’s defensive capabilities? In other words, is it ever true that the best defense is a good offense? How much offensive pressure, if any at all, should we realistically possess to compensate for our low bulk?
- Pokemon such as Astrolotl, Landorus-T, and Hydreigon often fulfill roles that are simultaneously offensive and defensive in nature. What is the ratio of “checking offensive threats / applying offensive pressure” we should strive for, and how can we ensure that our end product would have a unique yet concept-fulfilling identity?
- I firmly believe that the open nature of this concept is a point in its favor, but it still bears mentioning that this vagueness can just as well lead to certain failures. Simply “checking some offensive threats” would be our only focus, with the added restriction of doing so without strong defenses. One scenario is that we zero-in on the top offensive threats in the metagame, soon finding ourselves collectively pursuing an unspoken and unattainable goal to decentralize, fix, or otherwise balance the meta by reigning in the most prevalent wallbreakers. Another scenario is that, due to the great number of possible directions this concept could go in, the community may disagree about which Pokemon we want to check and what role we want to occupy. We saw both of these things happen (to what extent is debatable) during the process for our most recent CAP, Miasmaw, and it's likely that "Bulletproof Glass" isn't the only concept for CAP 29 that will risk experiencing these pitfalls either. So, finally: In the event we choose to execute this concept, how can we--as a community--avoid collective mentalities like the ones I have described? What are the specific risks with a concept like this, and how are we going to avoid them?
Once again, those options are:
quziel
Tommaniacal
-Voltage-
Rabia
chuckeroo777
Darek851
2spoopy4u
Please ensure your ballot uses
usernames (the things that are bolded), not
Concept Names. This vote will end in
24 Hours, so please do not feel rushed, and instead ensure you make an informed decision!
CAP 29 So Far
