CAP 29 - Part 2 - Primary Ability Discussion

[CrasherYT]

Which abilities fit the umbrella of being negative enough for this concept? Which do not? Why?

I feel as if some abilities that would fit underneath this umbrella of negative abilities would be abilities such as Emergency Exit, Hustle, or Perish Body, and the abilities that just straight up have no effect such as Illuminate or Telepathy should not be discussed as that would not help. Just to clear that up.

I feel as if Purely Negative would not be a valid discussion point as these abilities would probably just result in an unreliable CAP that has nothing but a high BST.

Unreliable may be fun to play with and figure out how this could be used as a benefit. This has my full support.

Mechanic Dependent (Niche Dependent) is another one of those categories that would be very fun, from ghost types with trapping moves and Normalize, to a Klutz scarf tricker, this would be very fun.

Give and Take is a relatively large category, but I feel like it is not what we are looking for here with a defective ability. However, I still see this as another option for a direction we can take this in.

Finally, Contradictory (Self-Destructive) is something that we could take into account as this would be a sort of ability/type combo such as a Grass/Steel type with Fluffy, which would be a very strong physical tank, but would be just killed by fire moves.

 

[ArcanineLover]

Playing around with Emergency Exit is the obvious answer but it almost feels too obvious. At that point I feel like we'd just be making a "Golisopod but fixed" mon at worst or a "Golisopod but different" mon at best.
Stall is being tossed around as being bad in general but good for momentum. That's basically all the ability has for depth.

Looking ahead a bit here, abilities like Slow Start and Normalize could be made interesting if we give the Pokemon something like Entrainment. The Pokemon still has to suffer its own ability, but being able to force that ability onto other Pokemon makes for an interesting dynamic. A bulky Steel or Rock type turning its opponents moves into consistent not-very-effective moves would be a huge defensive play, so we wouldn't want to make a wall out of the mon. Some other mon that needs a few turns to shake off Slow Start, and can help itself out by forcing other mons into the waiting room with it, would still encourage the need to take them out of the fight quickly and still wouldn't be able to deter special attackers with much more than a temporary speed drop.

Color Change has a lot of potential if we consider moves like Revelation Dance, which deal damage based on the user's primary typing. While it would likely end up being mostly detrimental (most types resist themselves so switching into stab moves will work out in the user's favour less often than not), it does make for an interesting idea.

quziel mentioned Mimicry and (the admittedly bad) Terrain Pulse. Those also sounded like an interesting idea.

 

[spookysocialist]

Playing around with Emergency Exit is the obvious answer but it almost feels too obvious. At that point I feel like we'd just be making a "Golisopod but fixed" mon at worst or a "Golisopod but different" mon at best.
Stall is being tossed around as being bad in general but good for momentum. That's basically all the ability has for depth.

Looking ahead a bit here, abilities like Slow Start and Normalize could be made interesting if we give the Pokemon something like Entrainment. The Pokemon still has to suffer its own ability, but being able to force that ability onto other Pokemon makes for an interesting dynamic. A bulky Steel or Rock type turning its opponents moves into consistent not-very-effective moves would be a huge defensive play, so we wouldn't want to make a wall out of the mon. Some other mon that needs a few turns to shake off Slow Start, and can help itself out by forcing other mons into the waiting room with it, would still encourage the need to take them out of the fight quickly and still wouldn't be able to deter special attackers with much more than a temporary speed drop.

Color Change has a lot of potential if we consider moves like Revelation Dance, which deal damage based on the user's primary typing. While it would likely end up being mostly detrimental (most types resist themselves so switching into stab moves will work out in the user's favour less often than not), it does make for an interesting idea.

quziel mentioned Mimicry and (the admittedly bad) Terrain Pulse. Those also sounded like an interesting idea.

I think it's unfair to call EE "just golisopod but better" when almost all the abilities being discussed are signatures - how is making a slow start mon not just regigigas but better?

Also, we have already removed entrainment from discussion, and Revelation Dance was snapped from gen8 so it isn't an option (unless Oricorio returns in future DLC).

As of right now, my personal favorite abilities are the unreliable - I feel like they have such a huge range of interations from both players and thus have the most in depth pokemon creation process, and the most opportunity to learn.

 

[Explosion Badger]

Also, we have already removed entrainment from discussion, and Revelation Dance was snapped from gen8 so it isn't an option (unless Oricorio returns in future DLC).

Isn't Keckleon and thus Color Change not in gen 8 either? or does the subject allow us to discuss it?

 

[taziathegreat]

Revelation Dance wasn’t as much snapped as much as it’s not currently in the game, I’m not sure if the distinction matters here but it is a distinction.

That being said i don’t think it’s a point in having the conversation about that move at this point.

 

[Talpr0ne]

I also think that Purely Negative abilities require a lot of self-discipline to not simply abandon the element of the mon they impact. (i.e. Slow Start being special attacker or Defeatist being a wall) I am not convinced that we can avoid these routes which makes them less desirable options to explore. If we had wanted to entertain the idea of meaningless abilities, they would have been carried over from the previous discussion. Unless the community can commit to working the elements of the mon that a negative ability impedes, they are not worth entertaining.

A wall is still affected by the attack and special reduction, unless it is a Blissey type mon that relies on Seismic Toss to have a consistent damage output (Foul Play and Body Press would still be affected by Defeatist). Turning even more passive if you can't stay healthy is still a drawback, albeit less severe than for a wallbreaker like Archeops. Likewise, even if the attack drop of Slow Start can be circumvented with a special attacker, the speed drop can't, and we would still have to minimize its impact or even make it advantageous in some way (Trick Room sweeper? Pivot?) which is the entire point of the concept. I think both are perfectly valid approaches to a Pokémon with a purely negative ability and more likely to yield a working result compared to a mon that goes all in stat wise with the role that these abilities are supposed to cripple hardest.

Isn't Keckleon and thus Color Change not in gen 8 either? or does the subject allow us to discuss it?

Unlike moves, abilities all still work fully regardless of the mon having them being available or not.

 

[Explosion Badger]

A wall is still affected by the attack and special reduction, unless it is a Blissey type mon that relies on Seismic Toss to have a consistent damage output (Foul Play and Body Press would still be affected by Defeatist). Turning even more passive if you can't stay healthy is still a drawback, albeit less severe than for a wallbreaker like Archeops. Likewise, even if the attack drop of Slow Start can be circumvented with a special attacker, the speed drop can't, and we would still have to minimize its impact or even make it advantageous in some way (Trick Room sweeper? Pivot?) which is the entire point of the concept. I think both are perfectly valid approaches to a Pokémon with a purely negative ability and more likely to yield a working result compared to a mon that goes all in stat wise with the role that these abilities are supposed to cripple hardest.


Unlike moves, abilities all still work fully regardless of the mon having them being available or not.

Thank you for the clarification. However I think what Wulfanator is saying is that just making a pokemon a special attacker with slow start is an attempt to nullify the effect that slow start has on the pokemon, or the same with defeatist on a wall. instead of actually giving the pokemon the full punishment of the ability, its simply trying to avoid as many punishments as possible. sure, there will still be punishments, thats the point of the abilities, but instead of facing those effects head on, trying to make a special attacker with slow start is trying to minimize the negatives instead of accepting them and still factoring them into the CAP's design. Instead, we should challenge ourselves to take in the full scope of the abilities negatives.

 

[PsychLantern]

I think using Slow Start or Defeatist is ok, as long as we keep "trying to turn downsides into upsides" as a focus to avoid making the mon completely ignore the ability. The topic is about making a mon that takes advantage of a bad ability, not one that just doesn't care about it, so it should be easy to remain focused.
On the other hand, both sound like abilities that are challenging to design a mon around, so being unsure about them is completely fine.

 

[ArcanineLover]

Slow Start would be an interesting case of detrimental on something like, say, a trick room setter. They could set Trick Room themselves but they can't stay in for too long to actually abuse it. They could just not set Trick Room but then they're stuck being slow and can't take advantage of their actual speed stat (which would presumably be kind of high once slow start wears off).
The only problem here would be that a trick room setter would probably be outclassed by Fidgit.

Something like a Trick Room or Tailwind setter with Stall could be interesting too. Even after setting their speed control of choice, they'd be guaranteed to go second on the next turn in order to momentum out.
Once again though, you'd be using a Trick Room or Tailwind setter that isn't Fidgit.

 

[Yuelia]

The issue I have with Slow Start in particular is this: it's outclassed by Stall for our purposes. In order to make a bad ability good, we have to look at what benefits Slow Start brings to a blank slate of a mon - namely, "we want to go last". In other words, the exact same thing Stall already does, but without forcing us to build a special attacker.

As for Defeatist, we're looking for an ability that has a redeeming quality that we can build around. Normalize offers added power and the potential for stuff like 2HKOing Kerfluffle with Knock Off. Color Change makes it harder for opposing mons to break through us on the defensive side. Emergency Exit / Wimp Out allow for pivoting potential. Defeatist has no upsides whatsoever.

I don't think either of these abilities have serious potential for us to build CAP 29 around.

 

[quziel]

The point of this concept is that the ability should provide some sort of limitation to the pokemon and that limitation must be worked around (not ignored). Defeatist says that you have half attack and special attack below half HP, but still full speed and full bulk, so a pokemon that can still make progress under half and has the ability to heal up would completely fulfill the concept; "Defective Ability is an Actualization concept; aiming to create a Pokemon that... works with an ability that would be considered bad on most pokemon."The concept clearly spells out that abilities that the only real qualifying factor here is that the ability itself should be considered bad on most pokemon, that the ability should limit the mon in some way, and the pokemon should be set up in such a way that it can make the most of the ability and work around its limitations.

At the same time, I'd consider completely ignoring the ability to be in violation of the concept, if not in writing, then in spirit. A slow special tank with Slow Start is effectively working with NCA, which we ruled out in an earlier stage; a wall with defeatist is similarly working with NCA, which was ruled out. Just because there are interpretations of these abilities that are effectively NCA doesn't mean that they are NCA in practice.

I am again throwing my support behind generally bad abilities (color change / defeatist / emergency exit / klutz / normalize / slow start / stall / truant) and heavily double-edged abilities (mimicry, perish body) (those where the opponent has primary control). That said, of the generally bad abilities I would argue that Truant probably does not have enough depth to run the CAP on. There are some other double-edged abilities (Weak Armor, Gorilla Tactics, etc), but I think they generally provide an overwhelmingly positive upside, and the downside is often just either ignored, or irrelevant by the time it comes into play.

Edit:
I don't wanna make another post in response, but here's my spiel.

There's 2 situations where Mimicry has use:

1) Running with your own terrain setter:

In this case there's a fairly simple question; what does this realistically offer to a team over either a well, better terrain abuser (how can you abuse harder than Raichu-A, Kartana, or Regieleki), which could have an ability that caters to the terrain, or just well, Regieleki or Kartana stuff, and how much do you want to do strict type stacking (this is not a good strategy a lot of the time, especially for Psychic, Grass, and Electric types). Because of the problems inherent here, I am comfortable with ignoring this aspect.

2) Mimicry changing typing to match terrain

This is realistically where the ability will come up most. The issue here is that you do not have control over your own typing. From using Stunfisk-G in NU (which admittedly has an amazing base typing), the situation where you would love to be your original typing, and have your original stabs came up a lot. Your opponent being able to specifically go to their setter to screw over your defensive typing is a huge factor. Eg if you want to check a flying type (fairly common) with Stunfisk-G, they can simply go to Thwackey and then switch to the flying type to beat you. Because of the lack of control here this absolutely is a bad ability. It definitely has some upsides; guaranteed resisting Koko's and Rillaboom's STAB moves is a large benefit, its just that its outweighed by its negatives (guaranteed being weak to Rillaboom's U-turn hurts).

 

[StarFalcon555]

I seriously don't understand why Mimicry is being brought up here. Maybe there's some weird programming quirk involving it that I don't know about, but to me it seems like a pretty good ability. It doesn't benefit Galarian Stunfisk, but that's more Galarian Stunfisk's issue than Mimicry's, seeing as it only learns two (2) moves that are strengthened by a terrain, and one of those moves is Terrain Pulse. A Mimicry Pokémon that A) has better stats and B) actually learns some solid Electric/Grass/Fairy/Psychic moves could actually have a lot of potential.

 

[Tadasuke]

There's been some absolutely incredible discussion so far, thank you to everyone who's been weighing in!

There are a few things I want to address right off the bat. First, I think it's wise to ban Truant from discussion. As many have already said, that would lead to a narrow and generally uninteresting process. Second, in response to what has been a wealth of discussion on the topic, I believe it's best to start focusing on abilities that do not fall into the categories of Contradictory or Give and Take. As with the previous discussion post, I'd like to open this up with something rather broad, then get into specifics for a few particularly contentious abilities. While not every ability discussed will necessarily make the slate, I think having deeper discussion on them will help produce the most well-rounded slate we can make. At this point I do feel that we should move away from talking about "buckets" and start more discussion on specific abilities. Let's begin with the broader questions:

• Which abilities are more restricting on the rest of the process?
• Which abilities are less restricting on the rest of the process?
• How much should we take this into account?

Now with regards to specific abilities, I'd like to go over a few that I feel we need a bit more nuanced dialogue on. Again, instead of worrying about which category they fall into, let's start thinking about what a process would look like if we pursued any of the following abilities. I've added questions to help guide the discussion, but if you feel as if there's more to talk about for any listed ability please feel free to do so.

• Slow Start: It seems as if the general discussion surrounding this has tended to avoid a key point. Five turns is an incredibly long time to stay in with a single Pokemon in this meta, especially if we are attempting to do so without being at full power.
  • What routes are available to us in terms of surviving those 5 turns?
  • What options are available for what we do after those 5 turns?
  • How do we avoid making the end product broken while still rewarding successfully staying in 5 turns?
• Defeatist: Out of all the purely negative abilities I find this to be the most promising in terms of resulting in a balanced project. However, I'd like to clear a few things up on this.
  • What roles can we fulfill while above half HP?
  • What roles can we fulfill while at or below half HP?
  • How do we make room for this mon to be able to fulfill both?
• Klutz: I don't really have much to say on this since it seems to me like the process would generally revolve around trying to trick our item away or disposing of it otherwise.
  • What ways are there to effectively make use of this ability other than Trick/Switcheroo?
• Stall: This is another that I'm not entirely sold on. It seems one-dimensional in terms of being helpful for slow pivoting, but I wonder if there isn't more we can figure out from it.
  • What paths are available to us with this ability other than making a slow pivot?
• Normalize: This ability scares me a lot. I worry that it'll be very difficult to toe the line of making sure it's not broken while simultaneously assuring that it can be effective in the CAP Metagame. I also don't see many interesting routes to follow with it other than overpowering strong non-Normal type attacks.
  • What non-attacking strategies are bolstered by this ability?

You'll notice that there are a good few frequently discussed abilities that were not listed here. I plan on addressing them at a later time, but for now let's focus on these. I look forward to reading through your continued discussions.

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

I seriously don't understand why Mimicry is being brought up here. Maybe there's some weird programming quirk involving it that I don't know about, but to me it seems like a pretty good ability. It doesn't benefit Galarian Stunfisk, but that's more Galarian Stunfisk's issue than Mimicry's, seeing as it only learns two (2) moves that are strengthened by a terrain, and one of those moves is Terrain Pulse. A Mimicry Pokémon that A) has better stats and B) actually learns some solid Electric/Grass/Fairy/Psychic moves could actually have a lot of potential.

Mimcry's use on Galarian Stunfisk is probably where a lot of players see it as a detrimental ability, and everything that quziel wrote above should explain the situation. Changing typing to the the current terrain might see some pros in that against Rillaboom and Tapu Koko you earn resistances to their boosted STAB attacks, but it comes at the cost of losing whatever the purpose of original typing is; in Galarian Stunfisk's case, it no longer is immune to Toxic under terrain, and also loses valuable resistances to Dragon and Flying. More over, that's just defensively; offensively, Mimicry makes the user lose their STAB attacks in unfavorable terrains. This makes the ability more often than not detrimental, and there are some cool ways to make the CAP buff it.

The most obvious way to me to make Mimicry work is on a strong attacker with either Rising Voltage or Grassy Glide. That way, it may serve a purpose defensively with whatever its original typing is while still having a ton of sweeping / wallbreaking potential with terrain support. Currently, Rising Voltage Regileki has a niche with Tapu Koko on Electric spam, so maybe giving Rillaboom an equally offensive partner could be worthwhile. Regardless, this niche would still be not the most viable, and maybe the mon could still be worthwhile without the terrain support.

Mechanic Dependent is probs my favorite, but Emergency Exit / Wimp Out are awesome too.

• Normalize: This ability scares me a lot. I worry that it'll be very difficult to toe the line of making sure it's not broken while simultaneously assuring that it can be effective in the CAP Metagame. I also don't see many interesting routes to follow with it other than overpowering strong non-Normal type attacks.
  • What non-attacking strategies are bolstered by this ability?

I'd argue that this ability is almost only defensive, because removing coverage for only Normal STAB attacks is very very bad. For starters, Thunder Wave can't be stopped by Ground-types, and Skill Swap can make the CAP untouchable if it's a Ghost-type. You can pair these with U-turn which is then a STAB attack, and then maybe the CAP could be an offensive support Pokemon. The defensive nature of this mon could also try stuff like Calm Mind + Stored Power or Bulk Up + Power Trip, which is still walled by Ghost-types in the same vein that Psychic Stored Power sweepers are walled by Dark-types. Really the only way I see how Normalize would ever be offensive is if there was coverage like Multi Attack and Judgement that can override the ability and compliment the Normal buff. Otherwise, I see it as much more utilitarian ability.

 

[Tadasuke]

I really like what you're saying in terms of how this could function as a setup sweeper with Stored Power / Power Trip, but a few quick things.

For starters, Thunder Wave can't be stopped by Ground-types, and Skill Swap can make the CAP untouchable if it's a Ghost-type.

I don't see the point of running Normalize Thunder Wave when Glare already exists. We don't really learn anything from that. Also, as per Birkal's post in Concept Assessment, we're treating both Skill Swap and Entrainment as banned for now, so please don't discuss any strategies revolving around them.

 

[viol and bass]

I think between Slow Start and Defeatist, Defeatist is the more promising route, because as mentioned, staying in for 5 turns is a big task without Toxapex-level bulk/movepool/typing. With Defeatist, there are several routes available to us.

One example is a fast pivot. There are mons like Cinderace, Dragapult and Zeraora which operate around outspeeding most of the metagame, pivoting out, and rarely if ever taking damage. In this scenario, Defeatist is obviously still detrimental, but it can be circumvented through careful play. After activating Defeatist, this mon would be a much less effective pivot, so avoiding activating it is essential.

Another scenario is a fat status-heavy mon. Raw damage isn't as important here. This mon could perhaps have reliable recovery to replenish its stats. This could be seen as somewhat circumventing the ability, but it can still be exploited by various means. Because this mon is forced to recover to have a reasonable damage output, setting up a substitute on it should be extremely easy.

A third potential role is a wallbreaker with high stats (perhaps stats that would make it broken disregarding Defeatist, to make it usable) that hits extremely hard right out of the gate. Think Eruption Heatran: if it takes damage, it's weakened, but it can still blast holes in the opponent's team prior to that. This would be harder to balance, and I think access to reliable recovery would likely break the mon, but of course the ability would be exploitable. After taking enough damage to activate Defeatist, assuming no reliable recovery, this mon would likely be sack fodder.

Edit:

Out of all the bad abilities we have to choose from, Stall is the one I'm fascinated by the most. This is because I feel that it's one of the only abilities that give us multiple options on how we want to play it. Slow pivoting has been brought up a lot, so I'm going to talk about an underrated aspect of making a good Stall mon: negative priority moves.

Yes, I know, Teleport is a negative-priority move, but it's been explored enough. There are many more negative priority moves that could offer interesting niches for CAP 29 to take on. For instance, we could use moves such as Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw, and Dragon Tail to make it a phaser. Or we could have a user of an almost-guaranteed 120 BP Avalanche/Revenge. We could even make use of Counter and Mirror Coat of all things!

I really think that there's more to Stall than meets the eye, and that could make for a really fun CAP process.

I just want to mention that Avalanche, Revenge, Counter and Mirror Coat, as well as the phazing moves, all have heavily negative priority already. Because these moves are essentially guaranteed to move last anyway, they don't really have any particular interaction with our ability other than making the moves' downsides less relevant. Still, for these moves, Stall isn't really beneficial in any relevant way.

 

[StarFalcon555]

Stall: This is another that I'm not entirely sold on. It seems one-dimensional in terms of being helpful for slow pivoting, but I wonder if there isn't more we can figure out from it.

• What paths are available to us with this ability other than making a slow pivot?

Out of all the bad abilities we have to choose from, Stall is the one I'm fascinated by the most. This is because I feel that it's one of the only abilities that give us multiple options on how we want to play it. Slow pivoting has been brought up a lot, so I'm going to talk about an underrated aspect of making a good Stall mon: negative priority moves.

Yes, I know, Teleport is a negative-priority move, but it's been explored enough. There are many more negative priority moves that could offer interesting niches for CAP 29 to take on. For instance, we could use moves such as Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw, and Dragon Tail to make it a phaser. Or we could have a user of an almost-guaranteed 120 BP Avalanche/Revenge. We could even make use of Counter and Mirror Coat of all things!

I really think that there's more to Stall than meets the eye, and that could make for a really fun CAP process.

Slow Start: It seems as if the general discussion surrounding this has tended to avoid a key point. Five turns is an incredibly long time to stay in with a single Pokemon in this meta, especially if we are attempting to do so without being at full power.

• What routes are available to us in terms of surviving those 5 turns?
• What options are available for what we do after those 5 turns?
• How do we avoid making the end product broken while still rewarding successfully staying in 5 turns?

I was just looking through Regigigas's movepool to get some ideas of what it could be missing that CAP 29 could have, and one big thing I noticed is that Regigigas gets almost no stat boosting moves. The only exception I could find was Double Team, which IIRC is banned from usage in OU. If you want to get very technical, it also gets Swagger and Psych Up, but that's more of a Pimpnite meme strat than anything. But other than that, nothing. It doesn't even get any Special Attack boosting moves like Calm Mind.

I can obviously see why they did this. Giving Regigigas Swords Dance or Rock Polish would effectively negate Slow Start. So I think that moves that boost Attack and Speed should be disallowed on a potential Slow Start CAP 29. But the other three stats I see no problem with boosting. Special Attack boosting might be problematic depending on our stat spread, but I think boosting our defenses is a great way to make use of the five Slow Start turns. It would turn CAP 29 into a great wall.

That being said, I'm still not keen on Slow Start in general, and even this idea I fear could become problematic. So tell me your thoughts on this proposal!

 

[Amamama]

Out of all the bad abilities we have to choose from, Stall is the one I'm fascinated by the most. This is because I feel that it's one of the only abilities that give us multiple options on how we want to play it. Slow pivoting has been brought up a lot, so I'm going to talk about an underrated aspect of making a good Stall mon: negative priority moves.

Yes, I know, Teleport is a negative-priority move, but it's been explored enough. There are many more negative priority moves that could offer interesting niches for CAP 29 to take on. For instance, we could use moves such as Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw, and Dragon Tail to make it a phaser. Or we could have a user of an almost-guaranteed 120 BP Avalanche/Revenge. We could even make use of Counter and Mirror Coat of all things!

I really think that there's more to Stall than meets the eye, and that could make for a really fun CAP process.

I don’t think stall is too interesting.
We are building CAPs from the ground up.
We could easily replicate this idea with just stats in any other process.
Something We can’t do for any other of the abilities.
Also The effects of going last have been explored on so many mons already, that I don’t think there is much to learn anymore, outside of making some more niche moves more interesting.
I guess there are some fringe cases were a fast mon with stall as ability might be different from a really slow mon, but other than that I don’t know what we could take away from that process.

 

[flying moose]

Klutz
What ways are there to effectively make use of this ability other than Trick/Switcheroo?
It's gimmicky, but a Klutz user could set Magic Room to cancel the use of all items without caring about the effect itself. Granted, the Magic Room would still affect the rest of your team if CAP29 switches out, so this would incentivize the design of a Pokemon that wants to stay in on Magic Room and can really abuse the lack of items on the opponent for five turns (i.e. something that is much harder to break without Choice items/Life Orb, or something that has a much easier time chipping down the opponent without leftovers recovery). Of course, this route would require finding reasons to use such a strategy over Knock Off spam.

Defeatist
What roles can we fulfill while above half HP?
Sweeper, Wallbreaker, Tank (first two are heavily neutered below 50%, as we all know)
What roles can we fulfill while at or below half HP?
Phazer, Status Spreader, Bulky Pivot, Wall
How do we make room for this mon to be able to fulfill both?
I foresee this leading to a process designing a tanky mon that appreciates the ability to do damage but has the ability to provide interesting support when it can't. Something like Ferrothorn or Rough Skin + Dragon Tail Garchomp. Both are/were highly successful defensive mons that could withstand hits and deal respectable damage, but walloping opponents was never their main game.

 

[StarFalcon555]

I just want to mention that Avalanche, Revenge, Counter and Mirror Coat, as well as the phazing moves, all have heavily negative priority already. Because these moves are essentially guaranteed to move last anyway, they don't really have any particular interaction with our ability other than making the moves' downsides less relevant. Still, for these moves, Stall isn't really beneficial in any relevant way.

That's... kind of the point I was making lol. A Stall user doesn't care about the decreased priority because it will always move last anyways. They synergize well, but I could see your point about them synergizing a bit too well.

I don’t think stall is too interesting.
We are building CAPs from the ground up.
We could easily replicate this idea with just stats in any other process.
Something We can’t do for any other of the abilities.
Also The effects of going last have been explored on so many mons already, that I don’t think there is much to learn anymore, outside of making some more niche moves more interesting.
I guess there are some fringe cases were a fast mon with stall as ability might be different from a really slow mon, but other than that I don’t know what we could take away from that process.

Yes, the effects of going last have been explored already. But what I'm saying is that we should we could use a Stall CAP 29 to explore the the benefits of going last.

 

[Explosion Badger]

Out of all the bad abilities we have to choose from, Stall is the one I'm fascinated by the most. This is because I feel that it's one of the only abilities that give us multiple options on how we want to play it. Slow pivoting has been brought up a lot, so I'm going to talk about an underrated aspect of making a good Stall mon: negative priority moves.

Yes, I know, Teleport is a negative-priority move, but it's been explored enough. There are many more negative priority moves that could offer interesting niches for CAP 29 to take on. For instance, we could use moves such as Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw, and Dragon Tail to make it a phaser. Or we could have a user of an almost-guaranteed 120 BP Avalanche/Revenge. We could even make use of Counter and Mirror Coat of all things!

I really think that there's more to Stall than meets the eye, and that could make for a really fun CAP process.

I heavily agree with this sentiment. A phaser that could guaranteed move after teleport and disrupt their switch-in is something that would be interesting to see in the meta. While yes, we could replicate Stalls effect with stats to similar results, I feel like theres more possibilities to Stall that I can't discuss just yet. As for other abilities:

Slow Start: I feel like this ability would be at its most interesting on a pokemon with decent special attack, but high attack and speed and decent defenses. This would allow the pokemon to have something to do in its first five turns, but then become a threat if it were allowed to get its act together. This is definitely one to be careful with, but could produce an interesting mon if done well.

Defeatist: I feel like this could be designed with no recovery move, and instead of trying to keep it alive for the majority of the game, have this pokemon be a fast early game mon meant to disrupt and damage the enemy team as much as possible before defeatist kicks in. I would definitely love too see the full potential of a pokemon that puts in 110% for the first half of the game and then leaves the rest to its team.

Klutz: This if the one I definitely feel has the least interesting usage. It can't even be used with Fling, so the only real use for the ability is to give the opponent a bad item.

Normalize: Foresight or Trick w/ Ring Target could be used to target any ghosts, but again, I don't see this as an interesting concept, and Spectriers inclusion only makes this a more intimidating concept in terms of balancing.

 

[jas61292]

Which abilities are more restricting on the rest of the process? Which abilities are less restricting on the rest of the process? How much should we take this into account?

To start with the last question first, I think this is honestly one of the most important questions for us when it comes to abilities. An ability that restricts us too much will lead to a boring an uninteresting process, and so I think it is crucially important to avoid that. Even if an ability is, in the abstract, super interesting, if there is really only a single way to feasibly make it work, it won't make for a good process.

So, with that said, I think the abilities that are probably the most restrictive (besides the already banned Truant) would be Normalize and Klutz. While I find those abilities interesting, in terms of their effects, there is not really much that you can do with them. Klutz would pretty much exclusively be for wearing a Choice Item (or maybe Assault Vest or Sticky Barb or Black Sludge) and using Trick/Switcharoo. There is really no other way in which not having your item effect you is a positive thing. That means our role becomes set from the outset, and movesets become limited. Normalize is not quite as bad, but really, there is not that much we can reliably do with it. Very few moves benefit from being changed to normal, and the classic example move, Thunder Wave, is now outclassed by Glare. While, I guess you could just say it is like Defeatist or Slow Start in that it is just purely negative, it is also super restricting. Sure, it does not necessarily require anything from movepool or any other stage, but there is just so little we can do with it that it would likely just end up a mon that is either forced to be overly passive, or to use a number of powerful moves with unique side effects that normally don't effect certain types. I just don't think its conducive to a good process.

On the other hand, I think the least restrictive include Defeatist and Color Change. Defeatist is a somewhat limiting ability, but it can be approached in so many different ways. We could go for something that really needs to stay above half health to be useful, but has either good bulk or reliable recovery to help keep it there. Or we could go for something more passive that appreciates being healthy and having some punch, but it not totally relying on it to function. Or we could go for just a more successful version of the Archeops mold and make something that is simply incredibly dangerous, but can be crippled if hurt enough. Color Change on the other hand has so little in the way of restrictions. While it does very much restrict us in play, it does not restrict how we build a mon. Types are not limited as they will be crucial for determining what we can switch into. In terms of stats and movepool, Color Change does not necessarily force any particular role either. I think Color Change might be exceptionally hard to pull off successfully, but I think it would make for a great process.

 

[The Crusade]

First of all, I'd like to throw my belated support behind Mimicry. It's not a massively debilitating ability, but it can be a big "oh no" when one's STAB disappears at the drop of a hat (or in the case of the accursed Stunfisk, no fewer than two immunities). It throws the door open wide to punishing status moves, SE U-turns, and easy setup on part of the opponent. That said, it may be that we can redeem the ability by giving CAP29 the means to control its own terrain or else prey upon prominent terrain setters such as Fini and Koko. It may take some creativity, but I see no shortage of potential.

Secondly, viol and bass makes a good argument for Defeatist. A Pokémon with a "Lugia spread," being a fast wall, can largely ignore the debilitating effects of the ability because (1) it should be confident splashing Recover/Roost/etc. when below the 50% HP threshold and (2) it should have the tools to pester the opponent without attacking outright. That said, I do wonder whether striving to keep the ability from ever entering effect is a tad unambitious. We can do better than try to pretend we have no ability at all.

To address Tadasuke's question ("What roles can we fulfill while at or below half HP?"), the answer is "get back above half HP," regardless of whether Defeatist 29 plays offensively or defensively, unless we lay down a wholesale denial of recovery.

And last...

• Normalize: This ability scares me a lot. I worry that it'll be very difficult to toe the line of making sure it's not broken while simultaneously assuring that it can be effective in the CAP Metagame. I also don't see many interesting routes to follow with it other than overpowering strong non-Normal type attacks.

...Hey, what about that other thing? Barring Multi-Attack, a Normalizer would need something else really special not to be Dunsparce Plus.

In Gen 7 Hackmons, Mega Gengar had a funky set using Normalize+Entrainment to completely neuter an opponent offensively (Ghost being immune to Normal), but we have rightly ruled against allowing that move. So if all of the above is off the table, I would speak out against Normalize. Without extreme measures to introduce unconventional coverage or push the ability upon the enemy, the most utility we can wring out of Normalize is "diet Glare" or "Stored Power but worse."

 

[PsychLantern]

For Slow Start and Stall, I've been looking at items and moves that can work with lower speed/priority mons. For the moves , the only ones I could really find something for are Payback and Assurance (which gains power if the user took damage on the same turn), which probably aren't enough material to work with. On the other hand, Zoom Lens does give us a bunch of stuff that could be done, since it boosts accuracy, but it probably would also make the mon really vulnerable to Knock Off.

For Defeatist, I'm not too sure. I'm inclined to work with a fast mon that could use its Attack stat before falling below 50%. I wanted to see if it could work more as a mon that cripples other mons by "transferring" its attack debuff, but apparently Power Split doesn't work with stat debuffs applied to the user or target. So... perhaps if it's possible a mon that could be complemented by an item that helps it escape the Defeatist debuff (like a Sitrus Berry or something like that)

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

That's... kind of the point I was making lol. A Stall user doesn't care about the decreased priority because it will always move last anyways. They synergize well, but I could see your point about them synergizing a bit too well.

I actually don't think they synergize much. Stall moves last within the same priority bracket, but you're still in the same priority bracket, so 1. what are we learning from this that we wouldn't have already learned from a slow Pokemon that uses negative priority moves, and 2. how does this synergize when most of the time we're either not interacting with the ability at all (since we'd be moving second due to the priority anyways) or actively being hindered by it (by losing out to other phasers)?

To also sort of answer Tadasuke's question about Stall:

• What paths are available to us with this ability other than making a slow pivot?

There are a few moves that are normal priority variants of negative priority moves, and they have some additional benefits to balance the fact that they aren't negative priority. Stall would allow us to take advantage of those benefits more reliably, as we will always be moving last within the same priorit bracket.
As quziel mentioned on Discord, we can use Metal Burst (a normal priority move) in the same vein as Counter and Mirror Coat (both negative priority), as Metal Burst can deal back damage from both physical and special attacks. However, I'm a bit scared that this route could turn potentially unhealthy, as being able to pull this off reliably also means being very difficult to kill, while being able to turn around any strong attacks against the opponent with increased power.
You could apply a similar concept to Payback (a normal priority move) in the vein of Avalanche and Revenge (both negative priority), although the fact that switching negates Payback (and 100 BP when it does trigger isn't super impressive) makes them rather unreliable.
Overall, I'm not particularly convinced by any possible routes Stall could take.